32 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
or handle being used for taking the snails {cochlea) out 
of their shells and eating them, and the broader part 
for eating eggs, etc. This may be doubted, but a spoon 
could scarcely resemble a snail-shell, and Martial says 
(xiv. 121), Sum cochleis habilis, nee sum minus utilis 
ovis.^^ 
At the meeting of the Ethnological Society, March 4th, 
1862, Mr. G. W. Earl gave an interesting description 
of the singular Malayan shell-mounds, which were formed 
entirely of cockle-shells. He described them as exist- 
ing in the province of Wellesley, near the Mudah river ; 
that they were about five or six miles from the sea, 
situated on sandy ridges that appeared formerly to bound 
the narrow estuaries communicating with the ocean. 
He adds that these mounds of cockle-shells are about 
18 to 20 feet high, and that the Chinese immigrants 
have largely employed them as a source of lime. 
These mounds are supposed to be of great antiquity, 
from the fact of the shells being partly cemented toge- 
ther by crystallized carbonate of lime, the result of the 
very slow action of atmospheric and aqueous influences. 
At the bottom of one mound, which contained 20,000 
tons of shells, a human pelvis was found j and other re- 
mains and stone-implements have been obtained from 
the Chinese lime-burners. Mr. Earl attributes the for- 
mation of these mounds to the Semangs, a diminutive 
Negro race now sparingly scattered over the surround- 
ing country, but who were evidently very numerous 
and widely spread in former times.* 
In Grey^s ^ Australia,^ vol. i., mention is made of a 
hill of broken shells, which it must have taken centuries 
to form, situated between Port George the Fourth, and 
* ‘ Intellectual Observer,’ vol. i. p. 239. 
