This genus derived its name from the Cyprian goddess, on account of the
beauty of its polished shells. They are generally smooth, of great
brilliancy of colour, and elegantly marked with dots, zigzag lines,
undulations, or stripes, and covered with an enamel-like glaze. They are
found buried in the sand at the bottom of the sea, and are covered by
the animal with a thin membrane, which preserves the polish and prevents
other testaceous bodies from adhering to them. This membrane consists of
two parts, and arises on both sides of the shell in the form of wings,
furnishing the testaceous and colouring matter; in some species they do
not quite meet on the back of the shell, and the uncovered space is
marked by a coloured dorsal line; when these membranous wings overlap
each other, this line is nearly obsolete.
These shells often differ much with age; at first in thickness, then
because the edges are thin, sharp, hardly dentated, unless internally;
and, lastly, sometimes in the outline; this is because the two lobes of
the mantle, by turning over the primitive shell during the creeping of
the animal, deposite new calcareous matter. De Blainville cannot admit
the hypothesis of Bruguiere, that these animals can completely abandon
their shell to form a new one.
Shell, when full grown and mature, is solid, oval, convex, very smooth,
involute; the spire entirely posterior, very small, often concealed by a
calcareous layer deposited by the lobes of the mantle, leaving in some
species a small cavity like an umbilicus; aperture longitudinal, very
narrow, slightly curved, as long as the shell, with edges internally
dentated, and notched at each extremity.
Shell, when young and immature, is very thin, the edges of the aperture
not dentated; the right margin sharp and not reflected.
Cypræa cerina.
C. exanthema.
C. tigris.
C. tigrina.
C. Argus.
C. testudinaria.
C. Mauritiana.
C. mappa.
C. Arabica.
C. histrio.
C. scurra.
C. rattus.
C. stercoraria.
C. mus.
C. ventriculus.
C. Aurora.
C. lynx.
C. adusta.
C. erosa.
C. caurica.
C. Isabella.
C. ocellata.
C. cribraria.
C. turdus.
C. olivacea.
C. stolida.
C. hirundo.
C. undata.
C. zigzag.
C. flaveola.
C. sanguinolenta.
C. poraria.
C. ursellus.
C. asellus.
C. moniliaris.
C. stercus-muscarum.
C. talpa.
C. carneola.
C. lurida.
C. vitellus.
C. caput-serpentis.
C. cinerea.
C. zonata.
C. sordida.
C. icterina.
C. miliaris.
C. variolaria.
C. rufa.
C. cicercula.
C. lota.
C. globulus.
C. ovulata.
C. helvola.
C. Arabicula.
C. staphylæa.
C. pustulata.
C. nucleus.
C. limacina.
C. moneta.
C. obvelata.
C. annulus.
C. radians.
C. oniscus.
C. pediculus.
C. oryza.
C. coccinella.
C. Australis.
C. albella.
_C. exanthema._ The measly Cypræa.
Species oblong-ovate, brown, with round white spots; dorsal line
grayish; marginal teeth brown; spire not quite concealed.
_C. Pantherina._ The Panther Cypræa. Pl. 31, fig. 4.
Species regular, beautifully spotted like a panther.