632 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
Parmaphorus, Rori, is a large black slug, with a shield-like 
shell on its back, it is abundant on the coast of Taranaki, 
where it is eaten the same as the Pawa. There is also a 
similar slug found in the same locality, but without any shell ; 
the natives describe them as being equally available for food. 
On the east coast at Tauranga is the Umbrella Indica, 
which is a very large orange slug, five inches in diameter, 
having a round shell covered with a brown epidermis, the 
inside of a bright orange, and fully three inches in diameter, 
the slug is rare. 
Of the Bivalves. The Fam. Veneredce is very numerous, 
being represented by about twenty kinds, some of which are 
fine shells. The Venus Plumbea is similar to a fossil of the 
Paris basin. 
The Mesodesma shemnitzii, holcota pipi, is one of the most 
abundant of all the New Zealand shell-fish, and generally 
eaten by the natives. The large mounds of shells seen along 
the coast attest how much they depended upon them in bye- 
gone days ; during the scarce months this with fern root 
formed their chief support. 
Of the Fam. Tillinidce, another bivalve, is the Toimanga, a 
fine large shell, which is generally found about a foot-and-a- 
half deep in the sand on the Manawatu beach, it is fully 
six inches long and four wide, so that it requires very 
few of them to satisfy a man^s appetite ; when first dug up 
the shell has a discoloured appearance, but after a little 
exposure becomes perfectly white, yet though massive, is 
brittle. The delicately painted sympliacea, and the pure 
white paper-like lucida must also be mentioned. 
Psammotia nitida is a curious fragile little shell, whose 
bright, glossy, hard, horn-like epidermis extends far beyond 
the shell, and effectually compensates for its weakness. 
Of the Fam. Solenidce , may be noticed a beautiful pearly 
transparent shell, very fragile, bulging out in the centre, 
with a small black line down its umbo like a crack ; there 
are other members of this family. 
The Byssoara N. Zealandice , striated at both ends with 
transverse lines between, has a thin brown epidermis. 
