by little rocky
inlets, where shells of endless variety may be collected in great
abundance.[1] During the north-east monsoon a formidable surf bursts
upon the shore, which is here piled high with mounds of yellow sand; and
the remains of shells upon the water mark show how rich the sea is in
mollusca. Amongst them are prodigious numbers of the ubiquitous
violet-coloured _Ianthina_[2], which rises when the ocean is calm, and
by means of its inflated vesicles floats lightly on the surface.

[Footnote 1: In one of these beautiful little bays near Catchavelly,
between Trincomalie and Batticaloa, I found the sand within the wash of
the sea literally covered with mollusca and shells, and amongst others a
species of _Bullia_ (B. vittata, I think), the inhabitant of which, has
the faculty of mooring itself firmly by sending down its membranous foot
into the wet sand, where, imbibing the water, this organ expands
horizontally into a broad, fleshy disc, by which the animal anchors
itself, and thus secured, collects its food in the ripple of the waves.
On the slightest alarm, the water is discharged, the disc collapses into
its original dimensions, and the shell and its inhabitant disappear
together beneath the sand.]

[Illustration: BULLIA VITTATA]

[Footnote 2: _Ianthina communis_, Krause and _I. prolongata_, Blainv.]

[Illustration: IANTHINA.]

The trade in shells is one of extreme antiquity in Ceylon. The Gulf of
Manaar has been fished from the earliest times for the large chank
shell, _Turbinella_ _rapa_, to be exported to India, where it is still
sawn into rings and worn as anklets and bracelets by the women of
Hindustan. Another use for these shells is their conversion into wind
instruments, which are sounded in the temples on all occasions of
ceremony. A chank, in which the whorls, instead of running from left to
right, as in the ordinary shell, are reversed, and run from right to
left, is regarded with such reverence that a specimen formerly sold for
its weight in gold, but one may now be had for four or five pounds.
COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, writing in the fifth century, describes a place
on the west coast of Ceylon, which he calls Marallo, and says it
produced "[Greek: kochlious]," which THEVENOT translates "oysters;" in
which case Marallo might be conjectured to be Bentotte, near Colombo,
which yields the best edible "oysters" in Ceylon.[1] But the shell in
question was most probably the chank, and Marallo was Man