Janthina

The best authorities of the present day, however, are of opinion that the celebrated Tyrian-purple was extracted from a mollusk known as the Janthina prolongata, a shell abundant in the Mediterranean and very common near Narbonne, where the Tyrian purple dye-works were in operation at least six hundred years before Christ.

Forty Centuries of Ink 1904

This kind of Janthina is attached to its float by a sort of peduncle, which it has the power of elongating, so that the fish itself sinks, with its shell, and yet remains attached to the float, which continues at the surface.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855

This species of Janthina, I afterwards found, has the power of in some manner taking in by suction a quantity of water, which it can suddenly expel again with great violence, sending it out as if from a squirt.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855

Janthina shells and Velella were round the ship, to which were attached barnacles of different species; amongst this group of islands numerous crabs were swimming about and running over them.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855

This sort of Janthina was very abundant; today we caught eight, and saw great numbers of them: yesterday we caught a smaller one of a different species.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855

We caught also a new species of Janthina, the float of which, instead of being nearly round and extending over the shell on each side, was spread like a spiral fold from the shell; the breadth of this fold was 0.45 inch, close to the mouth of the shell, and it gradually tapered off to a point, its length being 3.6 inches.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855

We also caught a species of small Janthina, nearly resembling those we had found before, but they were larger; moreover the species of barnacle attached to them was totally different from any we had before found, as if each species of nautilus had its own kind of parasite.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855

A shell (Janthina) * the same as was caught on November 14 1837, and on several other occasions, with its swimming apparatus attached.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855

The sea was, this morning, covered in places with fleets of the Velella of Lamarck; also with great numbers of the species of Janthina which I described yesterday; to both of these kinds of animals large clusters of barnacles were frequently attached.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855

Caught a small Janthina nearly resembling those we had formerly seen, also a small crab, two new species of gelatinous animals, and a Velella.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 George Grey 1855