24 ZOOLOGY OF THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. SAMAEANG. 



While crossing the Mindoro Sea in calm weather, masses composed of many hundred individuals were 

 obtained of similarly formed young shells, which were believed to be the young of two species of Bolium, 

 some being smooth and some hairy. These clung chiefly to floating masses. A.A. 



The minute helicoid shell of the young Cowry forms the nucleus of that which after- 

 wards grows and undergoes several changes in form, gradually becoming more and more 

 complicated until the outer lip is inflected and at length denticulated. The converse of this 

 would appear, however, to take place in other Gasteropoda, as shown in the development of 

 Boris, Aplysia, Tritonia, and others, where the shell at first turbinated and nautiloid in 

 shape, afterwards becomes a merely internal rudimentary plate or altogether disappears. 



On placing the young of Cypraa in a watch-glass of sea-water they may be seen to 

 whirl about like the Hyalcea and Cleodora, and, like Atlanta, to adhere when fatigued to 

 foreign bodies, not by any disc, but by means of the dilated expansions of their mantle. In 

 the course of growth these fleshy expansions become entirely absorbed and do not ultimately 

 constitute the lobes of the mantle which embrace and partially cover the shell in the adult. 

 It would be interesting to observe the transitions in the figure of the animal and shell 

 throughout the entire series of Mollusca ; many phases exhibited in their metamorphoses 

 would throw new light, not only on the identity of species, but on the reality of the existence 

 of certain genera. 



Of the rarer species of Cyprcea, the C. subviridis and pyriformis were collected at 

 Unsang, east coast of Borneo, on coral reefs ; C.flaveola at Ambolan, eastern extremity of 

 the Island of Mindoro, Philippines, from a sandy and weedy bottom in shallow water ; and 

 the small banded variety of C. Iimnphreysii at the Island of Gilolo, under stones on a reef ; 

 an enormous specimen of the white variety of C. gangrenosa was also taken from the coral flats 

 at the Island of Panagatan. The most important addition to the genus consisted of some 

 fine specimens of the C. producta, described by Mr. Gaskoin in the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society for 1835, from a single worn specimen, of which no other example had 

 been seen. They were collected at Unsang, east coast of Borneo, on the coral reefs, together 

 with specimens of C rubinicohr, of the same author, of almost equal rarity. The following 

 are the principal observations upon the living animal in situ. 



Although I have examined hundreds of Cyprcea tigris in a living state, I never saw those changes of 

 colour in the mantle of the animal described by Mr. S. Stutchbury in the Zoological Journal, who moreover 

 states that they crawl about usually exposed to the sun, while the result of my experience would lead me 

 to believe that they almost invariably lurk in holes of rocks, or under loose stones and among branching 

 coral. 



The soft parts of the different species of Cyprcea vary considerably in colour, the animal of Cypraa 

 carneola, for example, is of a beautiful red colour with the foot and mantle covered with numerous opaque 

 oval white spots ; that of C. Talpa is of a pale brownish black, with minute whitish specks ; that of 

 C. caput-serpentis is of a rich green brown ; and in C. lynx the mantle is covered with numerous tufts of 

 various forms, nodulous, trifid, or ending in two short processes ; that of C. Mauritiana has conical tubercles, 

 of C. erosa (Plate Y. Tig. 6) numerous, rather long, branching, arborescent appendages ; of C. moneta with 



