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The Murex brandaris is a closely allied species, and "one of the most plentiful on the Phoenician coast." It is unlikely that the ancients regarded it as a different shell from Murex trunculus. The Helix ianthina has a wholly different character.

Suppose, for example, that a person well read in English poetry but unacquainted with Browning's style were earnestly invited to consider the following verse: "Hobbs hints blue straight he turtle eats. Nobbs prints blue claret crowns his cup. Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats Both gorge. Who fished the murex up? What porridge had John Keats?"

This is the most expensive article of our manufactures; it is the belly-part of the calf's skin, which being white, admits of a dye from the murex a shell fish, very common on our shores." "Have you money?" inquired I. "None we exchange; but the chief article of exchange, and which serves as money, is the whale cheese, which keeps for years, and improves in quality.

In appearance it is like a large cat, with a tuft of long black hair at the extremities of its ears a feature which it has in common with the lynx. The most valuable of the fish belonging to the Persian seas and rivers were the pearl oyster of the Gulf, and the murex of the Mediterranean, which furnished the famous purple dye of Tyre.

The Purpura employed seems to have been the P. lapillus, a mollusc not confined to the Mediterranean, but one which frequents also our own shores, and was once turned to some account in Ireland. The varieties of the P. lapillus differ considerably. Some are nearly white, some greyish, others buff striped with brown. Some, again, are smooth, others nearly as rough as the Murex trunculus.

Bliss at Lachish have brought to light beads of Baltic amber mixed with the scarabs of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. A large part of the trade of Phoenicia was carried on in ships. It was in this way that the logs of cedar were brought from the forests at the head of the Gulf of Antioch, and the purple murex from the coasts of the Ægean.

The Murex brandaris is now thought to have borne away the palm from all the others; it is extremely common upon the coast; and enormous heaps of the shells are found, especially in the vicinity of Tyre, crushed and broken the debris, as it would seem, cast away by the manufacturers of old.

Of Volutes, V. turneri lives on coral blocks at Port Essington, and V. undulata partially buried in sandbanks at Port Dalrymple. Conus maculosus is an inhabitant of the last-named locality. The Mitras found in the Littoral zone were all on the north-east coast, and well-known Indo-Pacific forms. A new Murex was taken on mud at Port Curtis.

Victor, who was born on a Thursday, and therefore understood the birds' language, pricked up his ears and tried to catch what they were whistling. It was not long before he understood what they were saying. "I have the prettiest name," said one of them, "for I am called Strombus pespelicanus!" "I'm much the best looking," said the purple-snail, whose name was Murex and something else quaint.

They belonged to the white race, but had black hair and eyes. They dressed in brilliantly-coloured garments, stained with that purple or scarlet dye in search of which they explored the coasts of the Greek seas, and which was extracted from the shell of the murex. On their feet they wore high-laced sandals; their hair was bound with a fillet.