287 



seeing examples of this genus in an incomplete state, 

 twice the size of other mature examples of the 

 same species, may be accounted for, by the presump- 

 tive fact that the animal in some instances, after hav- 

 ing completed its shell to a certain period of growth, 

 becomes too large for it; and possessing the faculty of 

 removing from it altogether, new models another hab- 

 itation on the increased size of its body, which it com- 

 pletes to its second stage of growth; and then, from a 

 similar necessity to that by which it was first prompted, 

 again quits it, or, the term of its existence being theu 

 completed, dies, and leaves the shell as it is so often 

 found. The animal, when in a quiescent state, buries 

 itself in the sand at the bottom of the sea. The plate 

 referred to in Mawe's Linn. fig. 3, represents the 

 young shell of the Cypraea, in which the spire is always 

 very prominent, and the lip not reflected inwardly. 

 In this stage of growth the shells may be said to re- 

 semble in form some of the ventricose species of the 

 G. Conus, particularly the C, bullatus. 



The C. aurora, when finely colored and without 

 an artificial perforation, by which the chieftains of New- 

 Zealand suspend it to their dress as an ornament, is 



