Note 2663 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES. (continued 2)

Or “conchylium.” We find that Pliny generally makes a difference between the colours of the “murex,” or “conchylium,” and those of the “purpura,” or “purple.” Cuvier says, that they were the names of different shell-fish which the ancients employed for dyeing in purple of various shades. It is not known exactly, at the present day, what species they employed; but it is a fact well ascertained, that the greater part of the univalve shell-fish, more especially the Buccini and Murices of Linnæus, distil a kind of red liquid. The dearness of it arose, Cuvier thinks, from the remarkably small quantity that each animal afforded. Since the coccus, or kermes, he says, came to be well known, and more especially since the New World has supplied us with cochineal, we are no longer necessitated to have recourse to the juices of the murex.