The substance,
is, in fact, an excretion of the porphyra and the ceryx; for it is
deposited by the ceryx as well. Such, then, of the testaceans as
deposit the honeycomb are generated spontaneously like all other
testaceans, but they certainly come in greater abundance in places
where their congeners have been living previously. At the commencement
of the process of depositing the honeycomb, they throw off a
slippery mucus, and of this the husklike formations are composed.
These formations, then, all melt and deposit their contents on the
ground, and at this spot there are found on the ground a number of
minute porphyrae, and porphyrae are caught at times with these
animalculae upon them, some of which are too small to be
differentiated in form. If the porphyrae are caught before producing
this honey-comb, they sometimes go through the process in
fishing-creels, not here and there in the baskets, but gathering to
some one spot all together, just as they do in the sea; and owing to
the narrowness of their new quarters they cluster together like a
bunch of grapes.
There are many species of the purple murex; and some are
large, as those found off Sigeum and Lectum; others are small, as
those found in the Euripus, and on the coast of Caria.
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