MALTA AND SICILY. 
147 
these stones we also find a very pretty spe¬ 
cies of haliotis, or sea-ear, a curious limpet, 
(jissurella,) with a hole at the apex, and 
several other shells and marine curiosities. 
If the constitution of the collector will not 
allow him to wade in the water, any of the 
boatmen will be happy to wait on him for a 
trifling reward; but in this case he had 
better himself remove the chitons from the 
stones, which operation should be very care¬ 
fully performed with a thin, but blunt knife, 
to avoid injuring the outside edge or margin. 
After wading in the water for several hours, 
it is very delightful to put on dry clothes, 
and to spend the remainder of the day by 
the fire-side, examining the contents of our 
baskets and boxes, preparing chitons, and 
extracting the animals from the shells. The 
last operation often gives us a great deal of 
trouble, especially with the animals of some 
l 2 
