GENERIC CHARACTER.
Spiral; aperture without a beak, and somewhat effuse; pillar twisted or plaited, generally without lips or perforation.
**** Fusiform.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Shell obovate and slightly tailed with striated whorls on the spire: tip produced and glabrous: pillar with three plaits.
Voluta Pyrum: testa obovata subcaudati; spiræ anfractibus striatis; apice producto glaberrimo, columella triplicata.—Gmel. Linn. Syst. Nat. T. 1. p. 6. 3463. 102.—List. Conch, t. 815. f. 25.—Bonann. recr et Mus. Kircher. 3. f. 194.—Knorr. Vergn. 6. f. 39. f. 1.—Gualt. test. t. 46. f. C.—Martini. Conch. 3. t. 95. f. 916. 917.—(B.) List. Conch. t. 816. f. 26.—Martini. Conch. 3. t. 95. f. 918. 919.—Knorr. Vergn. 6. t. 27. f. 2.—(D.) Chemn. Conch. 9. t. 104. f. 884. 885.—(8.) Chemn. Conch. 9. t. 104. f. 886. 887.
The animal inhabitant of this shell, according to the generical definition of Linnæus, is a kind of Limax; the Limax is one of the Mollusca Tribe, or animals furnished with limbs; the mouth is placed before, it has a lateral perforation, the feelers are four in number, and the vent common with the lateral pore. This is the Linnæan character of the animal inhabitant of the Voluta Genus, and consequently of the species now before us.
It is not to be disputed that the discoveries which have taken place among the vermes of those testaceous bodies since the time of Linnæus, have introduced us to a far more extensive acquaintance with the beings of this nature than Linnæus could have possessed. The term Limax, which Linnæus applied not only to the animal inhabitants of the Voluta family, but also to the Buccinum, the Strombus, the Murex, the Trochus, the Turbo, in short to almost every genus of the Univalves, and some even of the Bivalves could not fail to excite remark. It could scarcely be conceived that in the very ample range of the creation which those genera embraced, such uniformity could prevail, and the subsequent observations of various Naturalists have tended fully to assure us that the Linnæan character of the animal inhabitants of the testaceous tribes was much too vague and comprehensive. There are indeed, it must be confessed, a considerable number of those testaceous bodies, the animals of which are still unknown, and may possibly so remain, but forming our conclusions, from the great multitude that has been recently discovered, and the number of those which have been examined with anatomical attention, we may presume, with safety, that the Linnæan Limaces ought properly to be divided into several distinct genera. How far a methodical distribution of the shells themselves, founded upon the zoological distinctions of the animal inhabitants, may be admissible in our cabinets appears less certain. The greater number of those shells, of which the animals are totally unknown, present insuperable objections; and the attention of collectors in the formation of the Conchological Cabinet, so rarely extend beyond the more obvious characters which the structure of the shells present, that we can scarcely deem it practicable.
The animal of the shell before us, Voluta pyrum, has been ascertained and well described by Lamarck, De Montfort, and other writers; it has the head armed with two obtuse feelers of a club-like form; the eyes advanced and placed at the base, at the outerside of those feelers; the mantle or fleshy covering terminating in an elongation folded into a kind of tube above the head; the foot, or disk, strong and muscular, and armed with a small round horny operculum.
According to the Linnæan classification, the shelly covering of this animal is a Voluta; and so far as the most prominent criterion of the Voluta genus, the folds or plaits upon the pillar lip be considered, this character is unequivocal. Linnæus regarding this as one of its most essential definitions, has overlooked the differences that prevail in the structure of the spire and beaks, or includes them only as distinctions of the different families into which his Volutæ are divided. Later writers differ upon this subject; these differences are considered by many as generical, and thus the Linnæan Volutæ have become separated into several distinct genera. In the shell before us, the beak is lengthened or produced, and canaliculated; and thus constitutes in the classification of Lamarck, a species of his Turbinella; and is the shell in particular which he adopts as the type of that genus. The character of that genus, as proposed by this Conchologist, in his work entitled Animaux sans vertèbres, is thus expressed, Turbinelle (Turbinella) a shell turbinated or subfusiform, canaliculated to the base, and having upon the column from three to five plaits or folds of a compressed form and placed transversely. Murex scolymus of Martini, Voluta ceramica of Lister, and Voluta capitellum of the same author, are comprehended with the Linnæan Voluta pyrum in this genus Turbinellus.
It has been observed by De Montfort that Lamarck has made a group of those shells which accord with the above character, and which he himself adopts with some small variations: according to this writer, the genus Turbinelle, of which our Voluta Pyrum is considered as the type, has the shell heavy, univalve, with an obtuse spire ending in a nipple; the mouth sloping and lengthened; the pillar denticulated with large equal folds or plaits, the outer lip strait and cut off, and the base lengthened.
After all the pains, however, which Lamarck and other Continental Naturalists have taken to establish the genus Turbinella, Cuvier in his Règne Animal observes that the shells of this genus differ in no other respect from the Conic Volutes than in the prolongation of their opening, forming a kind of canal, and adding that it is not easy to trace the limits between the one and the other.
We have experienced some surprise in observing that while so much attention has been bestowed by writers upon the generical distinctions of Voluta Pyrum, the differences that prevail in its presumed varieties have almost entirely escaped attention. It should be remarked that in the Gmelinian constitution of this species there are no less than four distinct varieties, all which, according to Gmelin, and subsequently to other writers, appertain to the Linnæan species Pyrum. From the synonymous references which Lamarck has brought together in one view, it is obvious that his opinion is the same; his Turbinella Pyrum, which is the same as the Linnæan Voluta Pyrum, will be observed to comprehend the several presumed varieties of the species to be found in the works of Martini and Chemnitz, and the same is again observable in the works of Denys de Montfort. There are, however, some Conchologists in England who do not agree in this particular, for they constitute at least three distinct species of the presumed varieties of Voluta Pyrum. This division of the species was first proposed by Dr. Solander, and has been subsequently adopted in several of our English Cabinets. As the particulars of this arrangement may not prove unacceptable, we shall proceed to describe them.
To the first of these new species Dr. Solander retains the Linnæan name of Voluta Pyrum, it is that kind which has the beak elongated, and is known by the familiar name of the Long Beaked Turnip Shell. This is the Voluta rostrata of some Conchologists; Rapum rostratum of the Colonnian Museum; and inhabits the seas of Tranquebar.
As the preceding shell is distinguished by the name of the Long beaked Turnip Shell, in allusion to the elongated structure of the beak, there is another known by the appellation of the High Spired Turnip Shell, in reference to the greater elevation of its spire; this is a second species of Solander, and is called by him Voluta Ponderosa; in the Calonnian Museum it stood under the name of Rapum productum. This shell inhabits the seas of Madagascar, and is the kind which becomes the more immediate object of our consideration as the subject of our present plate.
The third kind of Turnip Shell is from the straits of Malacca, a shell more ponderous than the preceding; of a broader form and having the spire more depressed. This is the common Heavy Turnip Shell of our English Cabinet, Voluta gravis of Solander.
These distinctions proposed by the late Dr. Solander are found conformable, in a particular degree, with the classification observable in the cabinet of M. de Colonne. The shells of M. de Colonne, it appears, were thus arranged by the celebrated Conchologist M. Favanne. They have, nevertheless, we believe, passed unnoticed by any of the modern writers upon this subject. The distinctions are certainly obvious, and might probably fully authorize their separation into species: it must be at least admitted that as varieties of the same species they are strikingly distinct.
Having so far treated upon the generical distinctions of Voluta Pyrum, and pointed out the differences that exist among its principal supposed varieties, we arrive at another point of view in which the history of this shell becomes no less important, or less worthy of our consideration: the sacred character which from some superstitious causes, remote beyond all research of the present race of men, this shell has acquired in the Mythology of the Indian Nations: in the rites and worship of the Indian Brahma. Among these people this shell is called the Chank, or Sacred Chank, the emblem of an attribute of the divine power, and is constantly seen in one of the hands of the Indian Deity Vishnu, as a type of the renovation of the earth from the waters of the deluge.—The cause of this catastrophe of the earth, the deluge, they attribute to the wickedness of mankind in remote ages, which incensing the divine Brahma, he caused a flood of the waters to overflow the earth and destroy every vestige of the creation, animate and inanimate, that existed upon its surface. After awhile the supreme Brahma disposed to restore creation, commanded Vishnu to deliver the earth from the flood of waters, and in testimony of its deliverance Vishnu bears in his hand the Chank Shell, the symbol of its renovation.[[14]]
Without proceding at any considerable length into the history of those mythological persuasions, it may be permitted to observe that as a type of the divine power in relieving the earth from the flood of waters with which it was overwhelmed at the time of the deluge, this shell is held among the Indians of the Brahma persuasion as one of the most sacred emblems of that figurative divinity; and this religion, it will be remembered, extends over no small portion of India and China, and even to part of Russia and Tartary. Vishnu, as one of the three attributes or triad of Brahma, almost invariably appears with this symbol in his hand. Whether in their paintings, sculptures, or carvings, or in the sacred paraphernalia of their temples, the Chank-shell is the customary type of their deity Vishnu, and sometimes it occurs in the hands of the inferior deities,[[15]] to whom Vishnu is imagined to have confided a portion of his power. If the Chank be the object of their devotion in health, so also it is the object of their superstitions in sickness and in death. The medicine administered by the Priest to his patient in the time of illness, from the spout of one of these shells, is considered of greater efficacy than if taken from any other drinking vessel; that from the spout of a reversed shell has a reputation inestimable. These reversed shells occur so rarely, that if at any time some happy fortunate of the fishing tribe of Hindoos should be so lucky as to find one, he is indeed considered as a mortal favoured by their divinity Vishnu; this treasure of the deep is immediately deposited in one of their pagodas, to the great honour and happiness of the discoverer. A dose of medicine from such a shell is deemed infallible, if the malady of the patient be within the art of medicine to cure; for if this should fail, they rest persuaded nothing else can save the patient from the death awaiting him.
As these reversed shells are of very rare occurrence, the price they bear is of course of considerable. Very few of the Pagodas possess such an inestimable treasure as a Chank reversed, they will command a price in Asia surpassing infinitely any idea that might probably be formed upon the subject. Four or five hundred dollars have been given in China, among the worshippers of Brahma, for a shell of this kind. In India they have been known to produce from one hundred to two hundred rupees, sometimes, three, four, or five hundred rupees, or perhaps a larger sum. The shells of this kind, which are purchased from the natives and brought to Europe, it may be imagined, for this reason, can have been obtained only at a considerable cost. It was principally through the unrivalled liberality of the Conchologists of the low countries, about the beginning of the last century, that the cabinets of Europe became possessed of these rarities, and they still remain extremely scarce.
Only two examples of those reversed shells have occurred to our observation: both were of that kind in which the spire is elongated; the high spired Turnip Shell of the English cabinets. One of these reversed shells we saw in the year 1797, in the celebrated collection of Mon de Calonne, ci-devant Minister of France, and which passed, at a considerable price, into the collection of the Earl of Tankerville. The other occurred in the late Leverian Museum, which was distributed by public auction, in the year 1806. This last-mentioned shell was in a less perfect condition than might be wished; it was worn and mutilated, and for this reason did not obtain by any means such a price as was expected from its rarity: it produced only seven guineas, a sum considered much beneath its real value, even in its injured state.[[16]] In the month of April, in the year 1815, the same shell appeared in the sale of certain effects, the property of the Duke de Bourbon, at his residence in Great Ormond Street, Portman Square, where it was sold, we believe, at an advanced price. It is the figure of this last-mentioned shell that appears in the present plate. We have delineated the specimen with all faults for the sake of greater accuracy, and from a persuasion that the Naturalist would prefer a correct representation from an undoubted original, to any figure in which its actual defects might have been amended by the pencil of the artist. The shell is depicted in its natural size, and it will hence appear, is little inferior in point of magnitude to the generality of those shells of the same species which are not of the reversed kind. The species is sometimes known to grow to the length of seven or eight inches, but such examples are not common. Of the reversed kinds the Leverian specimen, as it has been emphatically denominated, is probably one of the largest known.
The smaller figure in the lower part of our plate is a representation of the same species in its usual form, and appears clothed or covered with the thick filmy epidermis, of a brown colour, with which the shell is naturally covered when in a living state. From this figure it will be perceived that the direction of the spiral wreath or whorls in the larger shell is exactly reversed, and that the mouth or aperture of the shell, which in the smaller figure appears on the right side, is seen in the reversed shell on the left. Thus upon the least comparison of the two figures, the true character of the reversed shell will be distinctly perceived.
We should not omit to mention that the smaller figure which represents the unreversed shell would appear of the same pallid hue as the reversed shell, upon the removal of the epidermis with which it is enveloped. Sometimes, however, when this common kind is particularly fine, the exterior surface is delicately tinged with a less pallid hue, and the pillar lip and opening yellowish, inclined to flesh colour. That particular kind or variety which in England is denominated the low spired or heavy Turnip Shell, is sometimes pleasingly diversified with more vivid tints, and the younger shells occasionally spotted with brown, upon a ground tinged with yellowish or buff colour. We have no knowledge of any reversed shell of this latter kind, excepting one which is in the Museum at Copenhagen.
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London. Published as the Act directs, by E. Donovan & Mess.rs Simpkin & Marshall, Nov.r 1. 1822.