GENERIC CHARACTER.
Shell inequivalve regular, somewhat triagonal: upper valve imperforate, lower valve beaked above the hinge, the beak usually incurvate, perforated at the tip, or grooved, for the passage of a short tendinous pedicle, by means of which it adheres to other bodies: Hinge with two teeth, and furnished with two osseous elevated and furcated processes arising from the disk of the upper or smaller valve, destined to support the animal.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Shell red, ventricose, suborbicular, longitudinally ribbed: upper valve depressed in the middle; the lower with the back elevated.
Terebratula Sanguinea: testa rubrâ ventricosa, suborbiculata, longitudinaliter costata: valva superiore in medio excavato: inferiore dorso elevato, apice incurvato perforato.
Anomia Sanguinea. Obovata longitudinaliter sulcata, triloba; sinu profundo, nate producta latere angulata foramen ambiente. Solanders MSS.—Hab. in O. Pacifico. G. R. Forster.
Anomia Sanguinea. Portland Catalogue.
Anomia Sanguinea. Leverian Cat. sec. part. p. 15.
Anomia Sanguinea. Dillwyn’s Conch. 1. 293. 21.
Terebratula Sanguinea. Leach. Zool. Misc. t. 76.
Terebratula Sanguinea. Lamarck Anim. sans. Vert. T. 6. p. 1. p. 243.
Lampas Sanguineus, La Sanguinolente (Anomia Sanguinea S.) Calonne Cat. Humph. MS.
This is one among the number of those very choice accessions to the Conchological knowledge of the last century, that was derived from the scientific labours of our first circumnavigators in the Southern Ocean: it occurred to them upon the coast of New Zealand, not in any abundance, but so far plentifully that after the Banksian Cabinet was supplied there were several specimens to spare for distribution among the friends of Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, and Captain Cook. From this little store the species passed in the first instance into several collections, and among others into that of the late Duchess of Portland, Dr. Chauncey, Mr. Cracherode, Mr. G. Humphrey, and some others. It has since occurred, but not in any abundance to later voyagers in those seas. And it is reputed also to have been met with in the Straits of Magellan.
The specimen of this rare shell which we have delineated, and which always was considered as one of the largest of its species known, once constituted part of the Testaceological collection of Sir Ashton Lever, having been presented to that eminent collector by Captain Cook, at the time of his return to England after his first voyage. There is a small hole pierced through the upper valve of this shell, and which, in the absence of all other information, induces the persuasion of its having been originally suspended like several other shells we have already mentioned, as an ornament or appendage to the dress of some New Zealander; the aperture being so designed that the two valves could easily have been kept together by means of a string passing through this hole of the upper valve, and the opening in the beak of the lower one. The animal inhabitant is probably eaten by the New Zealanders, who besides being cannibals, subsist chiefly upon the marine productions of their shores, which their wives and female children obtain daily for them by swimming and diving into the sea. There is a rare species found in the Mediterranean Sea, Anomia Vitrea of Gmelin, which nearly approaches this species in point of size, and is eagerly sought after, we are told, by the people of those parts as a delicious food. We should, however, imagine from its scarcity, that it is only at the tables of the rich that this luxurious repast appears.
In adopting the genus Terebratula for the shell before us, some explanation may be expected for our departure from the Linnæan classification, for in the system of that author it is one of the Anomia Tribe, the term and character of Terebratula not being recognised by that author as generically distinct from the Anomia. Our reasons for this deviation shall be explained as briefly as it is possible: from the nature of those remarks, and the extent of enquiry with which it is connected, this cannot however be comprised within very slender limits.
In the Linnæan arrangement, the Anomia form a very comprehensive genus, and since in particular the fossil species are included it should certainly have been divided into several distinct sections or families in order to embrace the different tribes of those shells, which according to the character Linnæus has given of the genus must necessarily be referred to it. It is impossible without some modification of this kind to reconcile Anomia Ephippium and Cepa, with Anomia Caput Serpentinus or Terebratula, or either of them with A. Placenta; and there are besides these some other families which do not well accord, and which might perhaps be separated into distinct genera with great advantage, the fossil kinds especially, which are very numerous and much diversified in structure. It cannot be very material whether they be so divided into genera or be placed in different families under the general appellation of Anomiæ: they are obviously very dissimilar and should be kept apart, and we have examples of both these modes of classing the Anomiæ among the early Naturalists.
A late french writer, M. Bosc, speaking of this tribe of shells, observes, that Linnæus having confounded the Terebratules with the Anomies, Bruguière first established their differences, and Lamarck had fixed their characters. This observation is not sufficiently explicit, and may possibly imply more than the author of it has intended. It assumes as a conclusion that Linnæus committed an error in confounding these two genera, without informing us in what state of arrangement Linnæus found them. It may be inferred from this that they had been more accurately discriminated before his time, or on the contrary, that they never had been classed in any form, and that it was the want of knowledge in Linnæus which led him to confound shells together that were generically distinct. But whichever we are to understand, the conclusion is, that Linnæus had confounded them, and that it remained for Bruguière and Lamarck to reform those errors of Linnæus, which all later Naturalists had left uncorrected, if not unobserved. Now really this view of the subject is not fairly taken if such an inference be intended. The result of a very little enquiry among the authors who preceded Linnæus, or were immediately subsequent to him, will assure us of the truth of this; and will convince us beyond a doubt, that the discrimination of neither of those authors was necessary either to furnish the Naturalists of the present day with the term Terebratula; to determine the differences that exist between them and the Anomiæ, or to fix the characters by which the Terebratulæ are distinguished.
The Anomia genus, instead of being devised by Linnæus, or Terebratula in particular, owing its invention to any modern writer, have been both so long established that the greatest difficulty is to determine where in the retrospect of authors our enquiries are to cease. Without proceeding further back than the last two centuries, it may be observed that Fabius Columna in his work “De Purpura,” published at Rome in the year 1616, speaks of the Anomiæ; he calls them Conchæ rariores Anomiæ, and from that period at least the term Anomia has been received among Naturalists. Nor is the term Terebratula of much later origin. Da Costa in his Elements of Conchology informs us that from the time of Fabius Columna the word Anomia had become universal, that is as a general denomination for all the shells which Linnæus subsequently placed together under that name. The term Terebratula was given, says this writer, by Gualtieri; in plate 96 of his work, Gualtieri figures three recent kinds, and has made a particular genus for them, which he calls Terebratula. And it is further added in another place “the Anomiæ are bivalves with unequal valves, and never eared, the beak of the largest or under valve is greatly produced, and rises or curves over the beak of the smaller or upper valve, and is perforated or pierced through like a tube, from which particular they have also obtained the name of Terebratulæ.”
These remarks sufficiently establish the circumstance of the term Anomia, being a comprehensive title for all the shells which Linnæus subsequently placed together under that name, and also shews that we are not indebted to either Bruguière or Lamarck for discriminating the Terebratulæ. We can ever go further back in this particular than Da Costa has done, for that able author is mistaken in supposing Gualtieri to be the first writer who had proposed the genus Terebratula. Gualtieri published his work in the year 1724, and we happen to possess among other valuable MSS. of the celebrated Antiquarian, Hearne, the original copy of Lluid’s Lithophylacia Britannica, as corrected for the press, dated Montgomery, 1698, in which the genus Terebratula is distinctly named: and this, as it appears from the date, was more than fifty years before the time of Gualtieri; and we have also the authority of our english Lister in 1694 for the like distinction. All these writers, it will be observed, preceded Klein, who has in a particular manner described the genus Terebratula in his Methodus Ostraceologia, published in 1753, but in which he does not speak of himself as having invented that term. “Terebratulas, Luidiano titulo, vocamus Diaconchas anomalas, rostro parterebrato, vid. Nomencl. Litholog. Promotum hoc titulo.” His genus Concha ΤΡΊΛΟΒΟΣ, genus Concha Adunca, genus Bursula, and genus Globus, are all sub-divisions of the Anomiæ Conchæ of other writers, divided according to their forms and other peculiarities, and in which particular attention is paid to the perforation or non-perforation of the beak; Trilobos being distinguished as “vertice integro,” Bursula as Terebratulæformes rostro non perforato, &c. And we may lastly mention that from some original MSS. of Da Costa, in our possession, it appears that Anomia was a general term for the whole family, and Terebratula Anomiæ lævis was the term by which the English and other Naturalists, long prior to the middle of last century, were accustomed to distinguish the same kind of shells which in the modern nomenclature of Conchology is also named generically Terebratula. Da Costa, as Librarian of the Royal Society, was in the habit of correspondence with the learned men of his time throughout Europe, and his local knowledge from this circumstance, though never committed to the press, is not likely to be disputed.
We could proceed yet further, but enough has surely been advanced to shew that so far from Linnæus having confounded the Terebratula with the Anomia, he left them precisely as he found them, placing them after the example of his predecessors, under the comprehensive term of Anomia, which they had assigned to them. And we have also said enough to prove that to ascribe the Genus Terebratula to either Bruguière or Lamarck can result only from our ignorance of that information which in former days was regarded as the best criterion of an able Naturalist, a correct knowledge of the labours of his predecessors.
Under all its circumstances it may be a matter of some indifference to the scientific Naturalist whether in the arrangement of the Anomiæ we follow the concise method of the old writers and Linnæus among the number, or the diffuse distribution of later writers. If we place them in different families according to their characters, whether regarded as sectional distinctions of Anomia, or as distinct genera, we shall at least produce some consistency in the arrangement. But there is yet another mode of arrangement which appears to be the favourite theme with some Conchologists of the present day, and which it may be proper in this place to mention, namely, the classification of shells according to their animals. This has been attempted in the work of Cuvier, his “Règne Animal,” and the result of this endeavour, so far as it relates to the Anomia in particular, may in this place deserve our explicit observation. In this work (Règne Animal) Cuvier endeavouring to class the Anomiæ according to the animals known to inhabit them, as well as those which he imagines for the fossil tribes, so disperses them, that the Trochi, Turbines, Nautili, Volutæ, and indeed nearly the whole of the Univalves intervene between his two first genera of these bivalves, Hyalæa and Anomia; and the Anomia tridentata of Forskahl, which is the Hyalæa of this author, is placed with Clio (the shell of which is our Bulla Aperta[[26]]) among the Ptéropodes. After the long interval occasioned by this introduction of the Univalves we find Anomia,[[26]] and Placuna, two of his genera together, but with another tribe of beings, the animal inhabitants being of his class Acéphales; and after another wide interval in which the bivalve Mya,[[26]] the multivalve Pholas,[[26]] the univalve Teredo,[[26]] and the naked or shell-less Ascidia, occur we find in a distant class among another tribe of animals, Mollusques Brachopodes, the genus Terebratula. It is here ascribed to Bruguière, as in other works it is assigned to Lamarck. Such is the arrangement of this family in the Règne Animal of Cuvier, a form in which no cabinet, it must be acknowledged, could be arranged without embracing the most unprecedented anomalies; nor can we doubt that if the animals of the fossil Terebratulæ and Anomiæ were known, for in this arrangement they rest on presumption only, they must be further separated in such a system than they are at present, some being perforated at the beaks, others imperforate, and some having the aperture under the beaks, all which demonstrates a difference in the structure of the animal, to whose use they were adapted.
From this analysis of the generical distinctions of the different families of the Anomiæ we may now be permitted to return to the shell before us, the object of our more immediate consideration, and respecting which there appears to be no less misconception among late later writers than we have found already respecting the genera.
It appears that Dr. Leach had some short time since published a figure of this shell: his definition is altogether brief, and the information he affords less explanatory than might be desired: he quotes no authority or synonyms, and in his general description merely observes that “It seems to be a very rare species, a few specimens only having been received from New Zealand.” Vide. Zool. Misc. p. 76. Lamarck assuming from these observations, as it may be presumed, that the shell had not been previously noticed, unless it were an Anomia Capensis of Gmelin, proposes it as a new species under the name of Terebratula Sanguinea of Leach, at the same time that he rejects his specific character, and assigns another to the species; the character given to it as a new species by Dr. Leach is “Testa sanguinea, subtillissime et creberrime impresso-punctata, longitudinaliter costata, costis simplicibus; antica uniundulata;” that of Lamarck, “Testâ oblongâ, irregulari, rubrá, creberrimé impresso punctata; striis transversis undulatîs; margine denticulato,” to which is added, “Habite—les mers de la Nouvelle Zélande d’après M. Leach.” This seems to shew that the shell was only known to Lamarck, through the communication of the last-mentioned writer; and the suggestion is the more probable since the specimen in the British Museum has the same interrogation as to being the Anomia Capensis of Chemnitz, that is annexed by Lamarck to his description of the species. “Je crois qu’on doit donner comme synonyme l’Anomia capensis Gmel., d’après la citation de Chemniz; mais l’individu que j’avais sous les yeux, n’est pas assez entier pour affirmer ce rapprochement.”
There is obviously some want of farther explanation in these details, the omission of which may possibly be supplied by tracing the history of this interesting shell from the time in which it first appeared in this country; for there are local circumstances connected with it which having escaped the mention of Dr. Leach, and consequently of Lamarck, have led to the erroneous conclusion that it had remained till very lately undescribed. Dr. Leach was probably not aware, or through some oversight omits to notice that the specific name which he has given to this shell was that assigned to it many years ago by Dr. Solander, and that it has uniformly borne the name of Anomia sanguinea, or (Terebratula sanguinea) among all the English Naturalists in consequence from the time of that learned friend and companion of Sir Joseph Banks down to the present period: It is the Anomia sanguinea of Dr. Solanders MSS. and was designated under that name in the Museum of the Dutchess of Portland: it appeared under the same appellation in the catalogue of that museum, published in 1786: in the Calonnian Museum and Catalogue, printed in the year 1795; it stood under that name also in the Museum of Sir Ashton Lever, and it appeared under the same denomination in the sale catalogue of that museum, published in the year 1806. Under all these circumstances it may be presumed the name must have obtained no small publicity, and we need scarcely add that the example of these authorities were followed in the Cabinets of english collectors generally, that happened to be in possession of the shell, among which was that of Mr. Cracherode, which was subsequently deposited in the British Museum. And lastly, it should be mentioned that it occurs under the same name in the Testaceological Manual of Mr. Dillwyn. Nothing therefore can be more certain than that the french writers are not correct in their opinion when they imagine that the shell had been so named in the first instance by Dr. Leach; and it is no less certain that the credit of having first noticed the species is due to Dr. Solander, he described it more than forty years ago: his words as they stand in his manuscripts are, “Anomia sanguinea obovato, longitudinaliter sulcata, triloba; sinu profundo nate producta latere angulata foramen ambiente.” Mr. Dillwyn has well expressed the character of this shell in his description of Anomia Sanguinea, but has by some oversight misquoted this passage of Dr. Solander’s manuscripts; and by that means has confounded the Anomia Sanguinea of Dr. Solander, with his Anomia Cruenta; this will be more fully shewn hereafter.
Upon this subject we have only lastly to observe that although Lamarck has deemed it requisite to give a specific character of this shell dissimilar from that of Dr. Leach, he omits to mention, as well as the former, that very conspicuous character of the species, the deep longitudinal hollow down the middle of the upper valve, and the dorsal elevation of the lower one. Lamarck, indeed, confesses that the individual which he had under his eyes, and consequently that which he describes, is not sufficiently perfect to authorize him in determining the analogy between that shell and the Anomia Capensis of Gmelin, which Chemnitz has figured; a circumstance that may explain the cause of this omission in the specific character of Terebratula sanguinea. Yet we should have thought a shell sufficiently entire to have enabled this ingenious Naturalist to have composed his character of the species, would have been so far perfect as to have justified some conclusion upon its analogy with the Gmelinian Anomia Capensis. We may confidently add that these two shells are totally distinct species, and are even generically different if we enter very scrupulously upon their distinctive characters. Dr. Solander had described this latter shell before the time of Gmelin under the name of Anomia Cruenta.
The representations of this choice testaceous production, which accompanies our present description, will, it is presumed, convey a more correct idea of the shell than can be expressed by words. The Leverian specimen from which, as before observed, these figures are taken, realized at the public hammer at the Leverian sale the sum of five guineas,[[27]] and it still remains so rare that there would probably be little, if any, dimunition in the price were it again to be disposed of in the same manner at the present period. The shells of this kind vary in some small degree in the intensity of colour from a very deep sanguineous red to a paler hue.
35
London. Published by E. Donovan & Mess.rs Simpkin & Marshall, March 1, 1823.