Of All Animals. 49

...staying in the shallows, about a foot wide, it haunts stagnant sea waters and has a most pleasant flavor.

In the Mexican lakes, there is a common animal that, in shape, size, and its dark color—turning from dusky to black—resembles terrestrial beetles. It is covered in a shell like a crab’s; because of this hardness, the locals call it the *Atetepitz*. It supports itself on only four legs, which it also uses to hop. It is eaten by the inhabitants, who, like the Pamphagi, spare almost nothing. It provides a common food source, much like other species of marsh beetles, which they also consume.

Similarly, the Indians eat the *Atopina*, an animal like a beetle, four inches long and two inches wide when spread out. It is dark brown and covered with a crustacean-like shell, in the manner of crabs. This flying creature makes a rattling sound and stays among the reedbeds of Lake Mexico at night. The natives eat it boiled with other fish and herbs.

On Shells and Shellfish

Various kinds of shells are found in the South Sea of New Spain. One is called the *Xochpaltapachth*, which is a vermilion-colored shell with "ears" of medium size. It is marked with transverse semicircles that intersect lines running straight across; its color is a diluted vermilion red and a yellow tending toward red. Another species is larger and has very similar lines, but varies in white, red, and dark brown. Finally, a third type has a diluted reddish and dark brown color around the ears, with only straight lines.

The southern sea of the Indies also contains the *Tapachporcauhqui*, a mossy shell which earned its name because moss grows upon it.

Additionally, the province of Pánuco nourishes a certain Venus shell of an unusual shape. It is eared, but one ear is much smaller than the other. Its exterior color is black, which is why it is called the black shell; underneath, however, it turns from black to ash-gray. It is distinguished by nine ridges which, due to other lines running across them, appear to be cut into small circles.

Although the name *conchylium* is sometimes used for the entire class of shelled animals, it was nevertheless used specifically by the ancients for only one species. When used in this specific sense, it signifies neither the purple snail nor the whelk, but a shell distinct from these and quite unique—specifically the kind described by Rondelet under this name. It is very different from a whelk and is not surrounded by the jagged spines of the purple snail; however, it is a species of murex, specifically when "murex" is understood as a color.

Thus, according to Rondelet's thinking, the *conchylium* is placed among the larger spiral shells. It is wider at the part where it tapers into a spiral, lacking spines and other bumps. The opening, through which the inner flesh is revealed, is not round like in the whelk or purple snail, but appears long. Consequently, the lid of this opening also has this shape. For this reason, Rondelet adds that it is clearly established that the lid of the purple snail should be called *blattion* [βλάττιον], or *blattion byzantion* [βλάττιον βυζάντιον], although the "Byzantine Blatta" of the Arabs is nothing other than the lid of the *conchylium*. Following the Arab authors, our apothecaries sell a mixture of lids from *conchylia* and whelks, calling them Byzantine Blattae and fragrant nails (*ungues odorati*). However, the former are round while the latter are oblong, as gathered from the teachings of Serapion and other Arab writers. Therefore, it will not be out of place to present here the images of the true fragrant nail as well as the false one, so that the reader, by examining them, may consider these three different types.