GENERIC CHARACTER.
Shell spiral, gibbous: aperture ovate, (generally) terminating in a short canal, leaning to the right, with a retuse beak or projection: pillar lip expanded.
* Detrita, pillar lip apparently worn flat.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Shell with equal longitudinal and distinct mucronate ribs: pillar lip smooth.
Buccinum Harpa: testa costis æquilibus longitudinalibus distinctis mucronatis, columella lævigata. Linn. Syst. Nat. 10. p. 7. 38. n. 400.—Mus. Lud. Ulr. 609. n. 261.
Buccinum Harpa: testa varicibus[[5]] æqualibus longitudinalibus distinctis mucronatis: columella lævigata. Gmel. Linn. Syst. Nat. T. 1. p. 6. 3482. n. 47.
Buccinum Testudo. Soland. MSS.
Harpa. Rumpf. Must. 32. f. K. L. M.
Harpa Nobilis Argenv. Conch. t. 17. f. D.
This superb shell, admitted to be the finest example of its kind, at present known, once constituted part of the Conchological Collection of Sir Ashton Lever; and continued to be a distinguished ornament of that Museum after it passed into the hands of Mr. Parkinson. At the dissolution of that Museum, which took place in the month of May, June, and the beginning of July, in the year 1806, the specimen became the property of a very celebrated amateur, the late Mr. Jennings: he purchased it at the sale for the sum of seven pounds.[[6]] Mr. Jennings is since dead, and his collection being, like the former, dispersed by public sale: we are no longer certain in whose possession this very beautiful rarity now remains.
Besides that this shell excels in magnitude every other known example of its kind, the formation of the shell itself is extremely fine, its perfection exquisite, the colouring of the richest and most decided hues, and the marks and lines throughout, which so eminently characterize the shell, definitely distinct; we shall dwell no further on the peculiar beauty of this shell, from a persuasion that the drawing will be found so explicit and so satisfactory, as to render a minute description needless: it was taken with peculiar care, by permission of its proprietor, while it remained in the Leverian Museum, and will not, we are convinced, be found defective in point of accuracy, upon the most attentive comparison with the original, should that ever be produced in competition with it.
In the Linnæan arrangement of Conchology, the shells of this kind constitute a species of the Genus Buccinum, the Buccinum Harpa of that author. Previous to the time of Linnæus, the best Conchologists had considered those particular shells that possess the essential characters of the Common Harp Shell, as a distinct genus. Rumpfius so adopts it under the name of Harpa; and Argenville subsequently regarding that particular kind called Buccinum Harpa, by Linnæus, as the type of the genus, denominates it, by way of eminence, Harpa Nobilis. By some inconceivable error it has been asserted that Lamarck was the first author who separated the family of Harps from the genus Buccinum; this is evidently a mistake, as we perceive from Rumpfius and Argenville, and as we are now proceeding to shew from the “Catalogue Systématique et Raisonné,” of the once celebrated cabinet of M. de Davilla; besides which, some others might be added, were it material to notice them.
As we have introduced the subject of Davilla’s Cabinet, it will, perhaps, afford some pleasure to many of our readers if we mention a few of those very beautiful varieties of this natural family of the Harps, which were once concentrated in that costly collection. These, collectively, appear to have presented a series of the most choice and interesting of the varieties at that time known. The distinctions are taken from the number of the prominent ridges with which these shells are longitudinally traversed, and these, it hence appears, varied from thirteen to fourteen and fifteen in number. One of these, a very fine shell, and deemed the type of the Harpe tribe, was the Harpa Nobilis of D’Argenville: it had fifteen ribs, was very regularly marked with alternate zic-zac lines of brown and white, or rather of brown lines disposed upon a white ground, with a small intermediate incurvate line of grey traversing the middle of each of the white lines, in the same, direction as those of brown; a disposition of marking, very similar to the zic-zac lineations upon the shell represented in the annexed plate. There were two other Harps, in which the number of ribs, or ridges, amounted to no more than fourteen, so that the sides were larger; and they were also more inclined than in the preceding. These were marbled, and marked with streaks and dashes of rose colour, yellow, white, and chesnut, a large intermediate and rather deeper coloured zone, or band, passed round the middle of the shell, and two large spots of brown appeared on the under surface of the shell. There were yet two other Harps, which differed in their colours and markings from the preceding; one of these had only twelve ribs, or ridges, the other thirteen. The colours in one of these were paler, in the other the zic-zac lines, were more contiguous, or placed closer, and the longitudinal striæ less distinct or prominent. And besides these, there were several others, all which differed in some peculiarities of inferior moment, principally in the paleness or intensity of their colours, and variations in the disposition of the dark and paler spaces with which the shells were marbled.
The above series of Davila presents us with a pretty ample elucidation of the presumed varieties of that beautiful species the Linnæan Buccinum Harpa. We say, only the presumed varieties, because in the present state of the Conchological Science there appears to be a very strong propensity among collectors to increase the number of the species, by considering every trivial variation, or accidental circumstance in the growth of shells, as so many characteristic indications of new species; a disposition that the best Conchologists cannot but disapprove. Experience teaches us that there is no class of beings in the creation, in which nature is more sportive, than the testaceous tribes; none in which a greater caution is required in the precise determination of what are species and what varieties only: and among other local causes the influence of climates in different regions are not the least powerful in producing those variations. With the best experience, and the advantage of many years assiduous application, the Conchologist may be sometimes in doubt, and hence it is not likely that a slight acquaintance, only, with the subject will be found sufficient to enable him to pronounce with definitive satisfaction the exact distinction between approximating species and the sportive varieties into which they sometimes divaricate. These remarks cannot be more forcibly exemplified than in the series of the presumed varieties of the Buccinum Harpa. Some of these are indeed so very dissimilar as to justify a persuasion that they may be specifically distinct, and yet again, these are blended so intimately with others, which are confessedly varieties, that it demands the utmost caution in pronouncing which are species, and which varieties or transitions only. This is the impression under which the best informed Conchologists have ever ventured to define the shells which constitute the natural family of the Harps, and may serve to afford us a sufficient explanation of the causes of those differences in opinion which so manifestly prevail among them.
It may not be very generally known, excepting only among Naturalists, that the late Dr. Solander had devoted much attention to this intricate science: his arrangement of shells was designed as an amendment upon that of Linnæus. This arrangement was never made public; it remained in manuscript in the library of the late Sir Joseph Banks. From a perusal of these MSS. it appears that Dr. Solander had conceived the necessity of a new disposition of the shells comprised in general as varieties of this species. Some he allows to remain varieties, while others constitute, in his ideas, species nearly analogous, but nevertheless distinct. He does not propose the formation of an independant genus of the Harp family, nor the removal of those shells from the genus Buccinum, in which Linnæus places the species Harpa: he proposes only to assemble together the least equivocal varieties of that shell, together with that which he considers as the type of the Linnæan species, the true Harpa Nobilis of preceding authors; and to allow the others to remain as species distinct from the Linnæan shell. It will be hence perceived that Dr. Solander’s constitutes several distinct species among the number of those Harps, which other writers, and Gmelin among the rest, regard as varieties only of the common kind. In the manuscripts of Dr. Solander the very beautiful Harp shell now before us stands as a distinct species from Buccinum Harpa, under the name of Buccinum testudo. Some of the French Naturalists have called it Harpa testudinaria: it was placed under that name, and its synonymous appellation L’ecaille de Tortue in the once celebrated Museum of Mons. de Colonne, the French Minister of State, under Louis the XVI: the definitive English name of Tortoiseshell Harp was assigned to it by Mr. George Humphrey, and from his known authority in the study of shells, this variety has been since distinguished among collectors in our country by that appropriate appellation. All these names, it will be scarcely necessary to add, are devised in allusion to that resemblance which its peculiarly beautiful variegations of colour are conceived to bear, to those of tortoiseshell, when transparent and exposed to light.
We have been at some pains in our endeavours to reconcile our mind to the idea of introducing this Tortoiseshell Harp as a species distinct from the Buccinum Harpa, in conformity with the opinion of Dr. Solander. We have compared our shell with the acknowledged type of the Linnæan species, with every attention, and are compelled, in truth, to allow, that however distinct it may appear upon the first glance of inspection, we cannot implicitly accede to the persuasion of its being specifically distinct. Placing this remarkable variety with that particular shell, the true Buccinum Harpa, the less informed Conchologist would assume as certain that the difference existing between the two removed them sufficiently from each other. Arrange these, however, with those varieties and transitions of the Common Harp that approach the nearest in appearance to both kinds, and we shall then perceive such a close analogy, such an intermediate catenation, as will induce a pause, and certainly under the impression with which we view them, an idea that these variations arise only from local causes, and are not specifical distinctions. As a marked and well distinguished variety we have retained the term testudo, which Dr. Solander had assigned to it; but as a distinctive appellation of it as a variety, and not as a shell altogether distinct.
That it may not be imagined we feel any disposition to object against those changes in the Science of Conchology, which the more advanced state of our present knowledge may demand, we have no hesitation in adding that in our own opinion the Harpa family should constitute a very distinct tribe from the other Buccini; we believe, also, that had Linnæus lived to reconsider them, he would have comprehended them together as a genus. The French writers have long since done so. De Monfort advances that Lamarck was the first who separated the Harps from the Linnæan Buccinum. This we have already shewn to be an error. Lamarck’s example in proposing them as a genus in his Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres, published in the year 1801, and his subsequent observations in other writings, has tended to establish them as a genus; he was not its first proposer.
It may not be amiss, in conclusion, to observe, that Lamarck has taken for the type of his genus, the variety figured by Lister, in his Conchology, tab. 992 f. 55, the shell which he denominates Harpa Ventricosa. The leading character of his genus consists in the shell being of an oval form, ventricose or swollen, and having the surface furnished or beset with longitudinal, parallel, and sharp or acutely edged ribs. The opening or mouth, oblong, ample, abbreviated or cut off below, and without canal. The pillar, or inner lip, smooth, or without plaits or tubercles, and terminating in a point at the base. The absence of a canal is one material character by which the Harpa genus, as thus laid down, is to be distinguished from the new genus Trophon, to which, in some respects, at least, it bears a general resemblance. The definition of the genus by De Montfort is rather different from that of Lamarck: according to De Montfort the shells of this family are globose; the first whorl very far surpassing the rest in size, and the spire obtuse. The mouth is very open. The pillar or inner lip smooth and rounded. The outer lip bordered by an acutely edged rib or ridge, running paralled to those with which the shell is traversed externally, and the base cut off. The spire in the true Harpa, according to this writer, forms a kind of little domes, one surmounting the other, and the spire, instead of ending in an acute point, terminates in a small mammillated knob.
All the known varieties of this natural family are inhabitants of the deep waters of the sea, and the animal inhabitants appear to have remained hitherto undescribed. They are confined chiefly to the Indian Seas. The variety known by the name of Nobilis is a native of Japan; there is another found in China, distinguished by the name of Chinensis: both these are considered by Dr. Solander as the Buccinum Harpa of Linnæus: there is one kind found at Ceylon, and another at Madagascar, which are to be esteemed distinct species. The sanguineous Harp, from the Coast of Guinea, is the Buccinum pandura of Solander. The Harp, distinguished by having a far greater number of elevated ribs than any of the preceding, is from the seas of the Phillippine Isles, and is certainly a distinct species. The very fine variety which constitutes the more immediate object of our present illustration, the Tortoiseshell Harp, is a native of Madagascar: its length is four inches, and its greatest breadth two inches and a half.
9
London. Published by E. Donovan, Simpkins & Marshall, June 1.st 1822.