54 Beautiful Shells. 



ceive, long before man himself does, the indications 

 of calm and tempest, rain and drought, etc. But 

 our little Turbo, what of him? will you boil him, 

 and pick out his curled-up form with a pin ? or let 

 him go crawling about the rocks, feeding upon the 

 delicate earlier growth of marine vegetation ? In 

 the former case, you will have to reject the little 

 kind of horny scale attached to his foot, 'firhich 

 forms, when he retires into his habitation, a closely- 

 fitting door to make all snug. 



Several species of this genus are found on our 

 shores ; one of those is the Turbo rudis, or Red 

 Turbo, which has a very thick periwinkle-like shell, 

 about three-quarters of an inch long; the colour is 

 dull red, fawn, or drab. 



Of the foreign Turbince, sometimes called Tur- 

 ban Shells, we will now introduce two or three 

 species, which will be found on Plate III. Fig. 3 

 is the Marbled Turbo (I 7 , marmoratus), from the 

 Latin marmor — marble; a large handsome shell 

 well known to conchologists, and a native of the 

 Indian seas. Fig. 4 is the Twisted Turbo (I 7 . 

 torquatus) ; this shell, when deprived of its outer 

 coat or layer, is beautifully nacreous, or, if we may 

 so speak, mother-of-pearly. The specimens which 

 have reached England were brought from King 



