y answers this description you will know
it is an Auckland rock oyster. Errors and omissions will, I trust, be
charitably dealt with, as the inevitable mistakes of a man who is
blazing a track. I have endeavoured to give the Maori names also, but,
unfortunately, in different parts of New Zealand the same name is
frequently used for different shells.

My own collection of New Zealand marine shells, made during my residence
in Tauranga, Bay of Plenty, is, I believe, the best and largest yet
made, and among the specimens I can number no less than a dozen new
shells which I had the pleasure of adding to the recognised list. Over
90 per cent. of the known species of New Zealand marine shells were
found there by my friends or myself during the 15 happy years I spent in
that delightful, though not very progressive, part of New Zealand.

My thanks are especially due to Mr. Charles Spencer, of Auckland, an
ardent conchologist, and for many years my colleague in collecting
shells, for the care taken with the photographs, and for valuable
suggestions and help.

CHAPTER I.

SHELLS AND THEIR INMATES.

Before the study of shellfish, or molluscs, was conducted on the
scientific principles of the present day, shells were classified as
univalves, bivalves, and multivalves. The univalves were shells in one
piece, such as the whelk; the bivalves those in two pieces, such as the
mussel or oyster; and the multivalves those in more than two pieces,
such as barnacles or chitons, barnacles, however, being no longer
classed with shells.

The highest of the five types, or natural divisions, of animals are the
Vertebrata, the Mollusca, and the Annulosa. The vertebrates usually have
vertebrae, or jointed backbones, and from this the highest division
takes its name; but the real test is the colour of the blood, which in
the vertebrates is always red.

The molluscs have soft bodies and no internal skeleton, but in lieu of
this the animal is usually protected by an external shell, harder than
the bones of vertebrates. The annulosa, like the molluscs, have soft
bodies and no internal skeletons; but the external shell is divided into
joints or segments, and is usually softer than the bones of vertebrates.

Fishes belong to the vertebrate division, oysters to the mollusc, and
crabs and starfish to the annulosa.

The remaining two of the five divisions are the Caelenterata, in which
the general cavity of the body communicates freely wi