Murex

“ The Apple Murex (Murex pomum) is of home production, being found on the shores of Florida and throughout the West Indies. It is not as attractive as the shells just mentioned, but is very common, every collector possessing several specimens in his cabinet.
In the aperture of this species will be noticed a dark brown object which is known as an operculum or door, and its use is to close the aperture when the animal withdraws into its shell, so that the latter may be safe from its enemies. All of the rock shells possess this organ, which is attached to the back part of the animal's foot. ”

“ The limpet detaches itself from the rock and goes about in quest of food. Of shell-fish that are mobile, some are carnivorous and live on little fishes, as for instance, the purple murex-and there can be no doubt that the purple murex is carnivorous, as it is caught by a bait of fish ”

“ White purple is also named in the inventories of Sta. Maria Maggiore at Rome, and those of Notre Dame in Paris. “Histoire du Tissu Ancien, à l’Exposition de l’Union Générale des Arts Décoratifs.”
[293] François Le Normant, in his “Grande Grèce,” tells of the dye of the purple of Tarentum from the murex, found in the Mare Piccolo. He says that Tarentine muslins, woven from the filaments of the pinna dipped in the dye of the murex, rivalled those of Cos. Le Normant laments the total neglect of the murex in these days (could its trade be revived?) ”

“ The first family of Siphonobranchiata, Bl. the shells of which are extremely variable in form, but always have a canal or notch at the anterior extremity of the aperture. This family partly answers to the Canalifera of Lamarck and the genus Murex in the system of Linnæus. It contains the genera Pleurotoma, Rostellaria, Fusus, Pyrula, Fasciolaria, Turbinella, Columbella, Triton, Murex, Ranella, and Struthiolaria. ”

“ CONCHOLOGY.
PLATE XVI.
MUREX SCORPIO
var Minor
LEAST STAG’S HORN MUREX.
Univalve. GENERIC CHARACTER. Shell spiral, rough with membranaceous sutures: aperture oval, ending in an entire straight, or slightly ascending canal.
* Sutures expanding into crisped foliations: beak abbreviated. Purpura Gmel.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Shell with four rows of foliations: spire capitate: beak truncated. Murex Scorpio: testa quadrifariam frondosa: spira capitata, cauda truncata. Mus. Lud. Ulr. 628. n. 296.—Gmel. Linn. Syst. T. 1. p. 6. 3529. 14.—Rumpf. Mus. t. 26. f. D.—Seba. Mus. 3. tab. 77. ”

“ Anim. B. ii. c. 17. Cuvier says, that the buccinus and murex have a long neck, in which there is a tongue armed with little teeth, but very sharp, by means of which the animal is enabled to pierce other shell-fish.
2674 “Conchylia;” other fish of the same kind apparently; as Pliny uses the word “conchylium” synonymously with “murex.”
2675 “Præmia vitæ suæ.”
2676 Cuvier says that the buccini, properly so called, have at the bottom of the orifice of the shell an incision, which is the characteristic of the genus. Our whelks are the best known specimen of the buccinum that we have. ”

“ This species approaches Murex vitulinus very nearly; the body-whorl is very much elongated, and the nodules which mark the angles of the whorl are formed of the more elevated parts of what may be termed coarse longitudinal plaits. ”

“ The fifth family, Muricidæ, contains Fusus, Pyrula, Triton, and Murex.
The Murex, or Rock Shells, include a large number of species, all remarkable for their bright colours and somewhat fantastical and varied forms. They are found in all seas, but become larger and more branching in the seas of warm regions. The shell is oval, or rather oblong, the [434] spire more or less elevated, its surface generally covered with rows of spines, or tubercular ramifications. The opening, which is oval, is prolonged in a straight canal, often of very considerable length, as in Fig. ”

“ In one the animal has an operculum or lid, which closes the entrance of his shell; in the other, the shell itself is more or less enveloped by two large lobes, called the mantle, with which the animal covers his habitation. Nevertheless, these two divisions, as M. Cuvier has fully shown, become insensibly united, and form one natural group. The two principal divisions of the operculated race are represented by Cassis and Murex; the genera of the first have been pretty correctly made out ”

“ Castor oil taken with an equal quantity of warm water acts as a purgative upon the bowels. It is said, too, that as a purgative it acts particularly upon the regions of the diaphragm (precordia) . It is useful for diseases of the joints, all kinds of indurations, affections of the uterus and ears, and for burns, employed with the ashes of the murex; it heals itch, scabs, and inflammations of the fundament. It improves the complexion also, and by its fertilising tendencies promotes the growth of the hair. ”

“ This genus forms a distinct division between the Murex and Struthiolaria. Inhabits the Northern and Mediterranean Seas. One species is found in America. Fifteen living species. Five fossil.
Ranella gigantea. R. candisata. R. ranina. R. bufonia. R. granifera. R. bitubercularis. R. anceps. R. leucostoma. R. Argus. R. spinosa. R. granulata. R. semigranosa. R. crumena. R. pygmæa. · · · · · R. caudata*. 10. Genus Murex. Pl. XI. Animal. See Pleurotoma, above.
Shell. Usually oval; the spire but slightly elevated, roughened with longitudinal, transversal bands or varices ”

“ These shells are of very unequal form; their surfaces frequently covered with spines, knobs, or foliations. Some are remarkable for the great length of the beak, (Frontispiece,) such as the woodcock, the snipe's-head, and Venus's-comb. The Murex before you is foliated. (Plate 7.) The species are one hundred and seventy-one. ”

“ Achatina, Lam.
CHICOREUS. Montf. A generic division of the genus Murex, consisting of such species as have three ramified varices. Ex. M. inflatus, fig. 395.
CHILINA. Gray. Fam. Auriculacea, Bl. Colimacea, Lam.—Descr. Oval, thin, covered with an olive green epidermis; spire rather short, consisting of few whorls; aperture large, oval, rounded anteriorly; outer lip thin, joining the inner lip without a sinus; inner lip spread over part of the body whorl, terminating in a thick columella with one or two folds.—Obs. These shells differ from the true Auriculæ in the thinness of the outer lip. ”

“ They bottle and sell the precious things for which the brave fisherman risks his life and spends his days and nights, after all receiving but a miserable fraction of the gain. v. 13, Murex: the genus of molluscs from which the Tyrian purple dye was obtained. It was of the class Gastropoda, order Azygobranchia, sub-order Siphonochlamyda, *Rachiglossa, family Muricidæ. Purpura also was used (hence purple) , of the same sub-order—family Buccinidæ. “What porridge had John Keats?” John Keats, the poet, was born Oct. 29th, 1795, and died of consumption in Rome, Feb. ”

“ This process is not so conspicuous in some of the species of Voluta, but is more marked in the genera Murex, Fusus, Pyrula, &c.
Pillar, or columella, is that process which runs through the centre of the shell in the inside from the base to the apex in most univalve shells, and appears to be the support of the spire: and, indeed, seems to form that part of the shell: it is in general grooved or folded; but, as it is situated in the interior of the shell, a minute description is unnecessary. Plate II. figs. ”

“ Very dark, very fast, it grew; Murphy rode pitilessly ahead, and I crept patiently along, keeping my eye on the ghostly winding white of his horse among the trees. Suddenly I saw a light to the left, and Murphy wheeling towards it. I hurried up. Never shall I forget the picture I saw. A smouldering fire, two evil-looking men crouching over it; their mules tied to a tree; and a third still more villainous-looking man leading up a third mule. ”

“ When Murlock built his cabin and began laying sturdily about with his ax to hew out a farm—the rifle, meanwhile, his means of support—he was young, strong and full of hope. In that eastern country whence he came he had married, as was the fashion, a young woman in all ways worthy of his honest devotion, who shared the dangers and privations of his lot with a willing spirit and light heart. ”

“ On catching sight of Marcel, who had stationed himself in a corner with folded arms, she made him a sign of farewell, saying—"I shall be back."
"That is to say, 'Do not expect me,'" translated Marcel.
He was jealous but logical, and knew Musette, hence he did not wait for her, but went home with a full heart and an empty stomach. He looked into the cupboard to see whether there were not a few scraps to eat, and perceived a bit of stale bread as hard as granite and a skeleton-like red herring.
"I cannot fight against truffles," he thought. "At any rate, Musette will have some supper." ”

“ When my wife was a little girl with braids down her back, Murphy used to see her in the excited crowd in front of the neighbor's door, as he toted a grand piano to the waiting van. Many a time Murphy has started to give that little girl a penny because she was so cute. Many a time he has reconsidered and kept the penny himself!
It was Murphy who moved us. He is anywhere from seventy to ninety years old now—a stalwart, [Pg 19] steel-muscled young fellow who runs his own wagon and lifts his end of the heaviest burden with a heart as light as his chest is deep and his back broad. ”

“ Murlock had risen to his feet. Fear had by excess forfeited control of his faculties. He flung his hands upon the table. Nothing was there!
There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall, with a little groping seized his loaded rifle, and without aim discharged it. By the flash which lit up the room with a vivid illumination, he saw an enormous panther dragging the dead woman toward the window, its teeth fixed in her throat! ”

“ To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life; to another as the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benumbs. We may conceive Murlock to have been that way affected, for (and here we are upon surer ground than that of conjecture) no sooner had he finished his pious work than, sinking into a chair by the side of the table upon which the body lay, and noting how white the profile showed in the deepening gloom, he laid his arms upon the table's edge, and dropped his face into them, tearless yet and unutterably weary. ”

“ Paddy The Beaver Decides To Stay “The fair Green Meadows spreading wide, The Smiling Pool and Laughing Brook— They fill our hearts with joy and pride; We love their every hidden nook.”
So said Jerry Muskrat, as he climbed up on the Big Rock in the middle of the Smiling Pool, with Paddy the Beaver beside him, and watched the dear Smiling Pool dimpling and smiling in the moonlight, as he had so often seen it before the great trouble had come.
“Chugarum!” said Grandfather Frog in his great deep voice from the bulrushes. ”

“ Certainly my green frock-coat and Scotch-plaid trowsers are very pretty, but much too summery; they would do to live under the equator; but for one who lodges near the pole, as I do, a white bear skin is more suitable; indeed I may say necessary."
"Take the fur!" said Marcel, "it's a good idea; warm as a dish of charcoal; you will be like a roll in an oven in it."
Rodolphe was already inside the animal's skin.
"Now," said he, "the thermometer is going to be really mad."
"Are you going out so?" said Marcel to his friend, after they had finished an ambiguous repast served in a penny dish. ”

“ Musette was, above all, dazzlingly beautiful.
"I have never felt so happy," said she to Marcel. "It seems to me that God has put into this hour all the happiness of my life, and I am afraid that there will be no more left me. Ah bah! When there is no more left, there will still be some more. We have the receipt for making it," she added, gaily kissing him.
As to Phemie, one thing vexed her.
"I am very fond of green grass and the little birds," said she, "but in the country one never meets anyone, and there will be no one to see my pretty bonnet and my nice dress. ”

“ United one morning by the ministry of caprice, the registrar of the district, they had fancied, as often happens, that their union did not extend to their hearts. But one evening when, after a violent quarrel, they resolved to leave one another on the spot, they perceived that their hands, which they had joined in a farewell clasp, would no longer quit one another. Almost in spite of themselves fancy had become love. Both, half laughingly, acknowledged it.
"This is very serious. What has happened to us?" said Marcel. "What the deuce have we been up to?"
"Oh!" replied Musette. ”

“ You see, the Green Meadows were so strange and open that he didn't feel at all at home, for he dearly loves the deepest part of the Green Forest.
“No,” said Paddy the Beaver, “I can't possibly live here in the Smiling Pool. It is a very nice pool, but it wouldn't do at all for me, Cousin Jerry. I wouldn't feel safe here a minute. Besides, there is nothing to eat here.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” Jerry Muskrat interrupted. “There are lily-roots and the nicest fresh-water clams and—”
“But there are no trees,” said Paddy the Beaver, “and you know I have to have trees.” ”

“ Murcher, now quite near Olly's door. "He has been away all night; he has had a terrible time out at sea—in the sea—and on the rocks. Don't disturb him! He's fast asleep."
"If he hasn't slept for a week, and can't sleep again for a fortnight," cried Hatville, "I'll have him up and see if he knows anything about that watch."
"Let me speak to him!" said Mrs. Murcher. "You've no idea how weak and tired and worn out he is. I've got him into a perspiration, and now if it is checked, I shall expect nothing in the world but that he will have a fit of sickness, and may be never get over it." ”