Economic Uses of Sliells, and their Inhabitants. 169 



are filled up with solid shell as it becomes old. Immense quan- 

 tities are annually imported from the Bahamas for the manu- 

 facture of cameos, and for the porcelain works; 300,000 were 

 brought to Liverpool alone in the year 1850. . 



The queen-conch (Cassis Madagascar •iensis) , and other large 

 species, are also used in the manufacture of shell cameos. 



The best shell for cameo-engraving is the Cassis rufa, Brug., 

 from West Africa. This is the species, with the cameo cut 

 upon it, represented at Fig. 2 in our Plate. It was drawn by 

 , the late L>r. S. P. Woodward, from a specimen preserved in the 

 Shell-Gallery of the British Museum, where many other illus- 

 trations of the economic uses of shells may be seen. The secret 

 of cameo-cutting consists simply in knowing that the inner 

 stratum of porcellanous shells is differently coloured from the 

 exterior. Cameos in the British Museum, carved on the shell 

 of Cassis cornuta, are white on an orange ground ; on C. tuberosa 

 and Madagascariensis , white upon dark claret colour; on Cassis 

 rufa, pale salmon- colour on orange ; and on Strombus gig as, 

 yellow on pink. 



The conversion of shells into receptacles for various things 

 (both sacred and profane) should not be lost sight of here. 



Some specimens of Tarbinella rapa, from the Malabar coast, 

 are exhibited in the Shell- Gallery. They have been carved 

 externally, and scooped out internally, and were used, says Sir 

 J. Emerson Tennant, to contain the sacred oil, employed in 

 anointing their priests. 



In Zetland, the Fusus antiquus, suspended horizontally by 

 a cord, is used as a lamp, the canal serving to hold the wick, 

 and the body of the shell the oil. 



On the western coast of South America, there is a limpet 

 which attains the diameter of a foot, and is used by the natives 

 as a basin. 



But perhaps the most amusing piece of native adaptation is 

 an Achatina shell from Africa, which an ingenious native has 

 fitted with a plug, and used as a snuff-box ! (British Mus. Coll.) 



Numberless are the applications of shells as sinks to nets, 

 barbs to harpoons, and hooks, and in one case to make an arti- 

 ficial bait to catch cuttle-fishes with. 



In Ellis's Polynesian Piescar dies , vol. ii., p. 292, ho gives an 

 account of fishing for cuttle-fish with an artificial bait, formed 

 of a piece of hard wood, to which a number of the most beau- 

 tiful pieces of ttie cowrie, or tiger-shell, are fastened one over 

 another, like the scales of a fish or the plates of a piece of 

 armour, until it is about the size of a turkey's egg } and resem- 

 bles the cowrie. It is suspended in a horizontal position by a 

 strong line, and lowered by the fisherman from a small canoe 

 until it nearly reaches the bottom. The fisherman continues 



