444 
pliny's natuiial history. 
[Book IX. 
There are two kinds of fish that produce the purple colour ; 
the elements in both are the same, the combinations only are 
different ; the smaller fish is that which is called the bucci- 
num/' from its resemblance to the conch by which the sound 
of the buccinus or trumpet is produced, and to this circum- 
stance it owes its name : the opening in it is round, with an 
incision in the margin. The other fish is known as the 
purpura," or purple, and has a grooved and projecting muz- 
zle, which being tubulated on one side in the interior, forms 
a passage for the tongue besides which, the shell is studded 
with points up to the very apex, which are mostly seven in 
number, and disposed in a circle ; these are not found on the 
buccinum, though both of them have as many spirals as they 
are years old. The buccinum attaches itself only to crags, 
and is gathered about rocky places. 
(37.) Purples also have another name, that of pelagian : 
there are numerous kinds of them, which differ only in their 
element and place of abode. There is the mud^^ purple, which 
is nurtured upon putrid mud ; and the sea -weed purple, which 
feeds on sea- weed ; both of which are held in the very lowest 
esteem. A better kind is the reef-purple,^' which is collected 
on the reefs or out at sea ; still, however, the colour extracted 
from this is too light and thin. Then, again, there is the variety 
known as the pebble-purple,^^ so called from the pebbles of 
the sea, and wonderfully well adapted for dyeing ; and, better 
Cuvier says tkat the buccini, properly so called, have at the bottom of 
the orifice of the shell an incision, which is the characteristic of the genus. 
Our whelks are the best known specimen of the buccinum that we have. 
They received their name, he says, from the buccinum, or buccina, the conch- 
shell, (with which Triton is commonly painted), and that in its turn was so 
called from its resemblance to a buccina, trumpet or herdsman's horn. 
^- It is not the tongue, Cuvier says, that occupies this passage, but a 
prolongation of the skin or coat that envelopes the animal, and its office 
is to conduct to the branchise the water necessary for the purposes of res- 
piration. 
^'^ This description, Cuvier says, is applicable to the Murex brandaris, 
the Murex tribulus of Linnaeus, and other species that denote their growth 
by the increase of the spirals furnished with spines. ^ 
8^ Or ''deep sea" purples. Dalechamps remarks, that Pliny here un^* I 
wittingly gives to the purples in general, a name which only belonged tc 
one species ; there being some that only frequent the shore, and are not 
found out at sea. 
" Lutensis." "Algensis." 
8" "Teeniensis." " Calculensis." 
