GENERIC CHARACTER.
Animal a limax. Shell uniocellar, spiral; aperture without a beak and sub-effuse: pillar twisted or plaited: generally without lips or perforation.
* Ventricose, spire papillary at the tip, or terminating in an obtuse rounded eminence.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Var Noble Chinese Volute: Shell smooth clouded with zig-zag brown lines, pillar blueish and four plaited: lip subulate.
Voluta Scapha (var, Nobilis) testa lævi nebulosa; lineis angularibus fuscis columella caerulescente quadruplicata, labro subulato.
Voluta Scapha: testa rudi nebulosa: lineis angularibus fuscis columella cærulescente quadruplicata, labro subulato.—Gmel. Linn. Syst. Nat. t. 1. p. 6. 3468. 121. Hist. Conch. t. 799. f. 6. Kircher 3. f. 10. Bonanni, c. 3. 113. f. 10. Klein Ostr. t. 5. f. 94.
The fine example from which our figure of this rare and interesting Volute is taken, once held a distinguished place in the Conchological department of the celebrated museum of Sir Ashton Lever. The length of this shell is four inches and one eighth, its greatest breadth two inches and three eighths; the colour a kind of buff with an olivaceous tint, and the whole surface traversed with a number of irregularly undulated or zig-zag lines of dark brown, disposed longitudinally throughout: the peculiar character of which will be conceived more readily from the delineation than from any explanation that can be conveyed by words. These longitudinal lines are numerous upon the back or superior surface of the first wreath of the shell, and extends also on the lower surface as far as the dilated space of the columella or pillar lip; which latter is of a pure white and destitute of any markings. The mouth or aperture with the interior of the shell is also white, and the plaits of the pillar, which constitutes one of the most essential characters of the genus Volute, are prominent and well defined.
This species of Voluta has long retained its reputation as a shell of distinguished rarity; it was very rare in the time of Kircher and Bonanni, and it has continued scarce even to the present period. At the sale of the Leverian collection, the example of which the delineation is now before us, produced the sum of five guineas and a half: since that time other specimens of the same species have occurred occasionally to observation, but which have still maintained an equal price in proportion to their excellence or perfection. The Leverian shell was a most select example, and has not been surpassed in point of beauty by any of the specimens we have since seen. At the dissolution of that inestimable museum, which happened in the year 1806, this admirable shell passed into the possession of the worthy secretary of the Linnæan Society, A. Mc. Leay, Esq. and it still constitutes a part of the fine Conchological collection of that very eminent naturalist.
The late Dr. Solander, as it appears from his manuscripts preserved in the library of the late worthy President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. had designated this kind of Voluta by the name of Nobilis; it is a fine shell and not unworthy of that distinguished appellation. It is however certain, that it is no other than a variety of Voluta Scapha of the Linnæan school[[4]], and as the changing and transposition of names that are sufficiently explicit and well understood can only tend to create confusion instead of aiding the pursuits of science, we can have no hesitation in retaining it under its former designation. As a variety, we admit this shell to be distinct and well defined, and to be so far prominent as to merit a definitive appellation; and it is under this persuasion the term Nobilis, assigned but by Dr. Solander, is subjoined to the specific name Voluta Scapha.
This very rare kind of Voluta Scapha is from China, the variety more coarse in its general appearance that constitutes the type of this species, is a native of the Cape of Good Hope.
Among the older definitions by which this shell was known among the early writers, we may mention that of the learned Kircher, whose museum of curiosities, extant in the beginning of the last century, contained a shell of this kind, which Bonanni thus describes:—“Conchylium ea parte latius qua in turbinem desinit sine aculeis, et tuberculis, foramen non rotundum, ut in Purpura et Buccina, sed longum.” Musaei Kircheriani. classis iii. 10. 450. et Bonan. 113.
It may not be amiss to observe, in conclusion, that amidst all the improvements which modern naturalists have made in the science of Conchology, Voluta Scapha still remains a Volute among the most approved writers of the present day, while most of those species considered by Linnæus as appertaining to the same genus are removed to other newly-constituted genera.
The character of the true Volute, as it is at present laid down, consists in the shell being of an oval form, more or less ventricose, or swollen, the summit obtuse and ending in a kind of papilla, or teat, the base of the shell cut off or somewhat truncated: without canal, and the pillar charged with plaits or folds, of which the inferior ones are the largest and longest. The precise contrary of this is observable in the new genus Mitra, of which Voluta Episcopalis is considered as the type. In this last mentioned shell, the body instead of being ventricose is subfusiform, the spire pointed at the summit, and the lower plaits upon the pillar smaller instead of larger. The contrast between these two tribes will, it is conceived, sufficiently illustrate the characteristic peculiarities of the genus Volute, as it is at present constituted.
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London. Published as the Act directs, by E. Donovan & Mess.rs Simpkin & Marshall, May 1.st 1822.