526 



LIST OF IRISH TESTACEA. 



Habitat in Europa, Asia^ Afiica; in M. Medit 

 terraneojrequefitior ; etiam pelagiea. — Linn. 

 Syst. Nat. ii. p. 1246. No. 689 — Turton's 

 Linne, iv. p. 528. 



Shell nearly imperforated, roundish, obtuse, 

 diaphanous, and very brittle ; aperture dilated 

 behind, with an emarginate lip. The colour 

 of the shell is violet, with a sub-triangular 

 aperture : the animal, when alive, shines by 

 night, and stains the hand with a violet or 

 purple dye. 



Many hundreds of this shell were found at Port- 

 rush, county of Antrim, by Mrs Clewlow of 

 Belfast, and Miss Kelly, after a storm, 

 with the animal alive in them. Some of 

 them were found floating on the surface of 

 the water, and they seemed to be buoyed up 

 by a little reticulated membrane, of a purple 

 colour; there also exuded from the body of the 

 animal a fine purple mucous substance. This 

 shell is well known as a West India species, 

 and we can only suppose they have been car- 

 ried on the surface of the water, during a long 

 continuance of westerly winds, which prevail- 

 ed at the time, as they have never since been 

 met with. 



The account given by Mrs Clewlow to me of 

 this shell, agrees in a great measure with the 

 description given by Brown, in his Account 

 of Jamaica, which I shall here quote : " Purple 

 Ocean ShelU The creature which forms and 

 inhabits this shell, is a native of the ocean, 



* and lives frequently many hundred leagues 

 from any land ; but having met with many of 

 the kind between Bermudas and the Wes- 

 tern Islands, in my voyage from Jamaica, it 



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