gt2 WENTLETRAP SHELLS. 
could boast. There was hardly any sum which a wealthy connoisseur or 
virtuoso, as the fashion was then to call those who were fond of natura: 
history, would not give for an especially large and perfect example of this 
really pretty shell. Now, however, its glory has departed, for a tolerably good 
specimen may be procured for a few shillings, and a Wentletrap which would 
afew years ago have been sold for fifty pounds can now be purchased for 
fifteen shillings. 
Putting aside, however, the question of rarity or cost, this shell is a very 
interesting one, both for its beauty and the mode of its construction. It is 
purely white, and partly transparent, the elevated ridges being of a more 
snowy white than the body of the shell, on account of their superior thick- 
ness, which does not permit the light to pass through them as in the case of 
the thinner body. The whorls of this shell are separate from each other 
and, apparently bound together only by the projecting ridges, so that the 
general appearance is as if a long conical tube had been loosely coiled, and 
each whorl kept in its place by a succession of shelly elevations. This 
beautiful shell is found in the Indian and Chinese seas. 
COMMON WENTLETRAP.—(Scalaria communis.) 
STAIRCASE WENTLEIRAP.—(Scalaria prettosa.) 
the COMMON or FALSE WENTLETRAP, a species tolerably common upon 
our coasts. 
In this shell, the whorls are united together and furnished with a number of 
circular elevations, which, however, are not nearly so bold as those of the 
preceding species, but thick in proportion to their height, set obliquely on 
the shell, and smooth. 
WE now arrive at another famiy, termed the Litorinide, or Shore 
Molluscs, because the greater number of them frequent the coasts, and feed 
upon the various algz. The shell is always spiral and never pearly, by 
which latter characteristic it may be distinguished from certain shells 
belonging to another family, hut somewhat similar in external appearance. 
The aperture is rounded. The animal has its eye set at the outer base of 
