CONCHOLOGY.
PLATE XXII.
VOLUTA PYRUM
PEAR VOLUTE.
Back View.
Univalve.
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 subcaudata spiræ anfractibus striatis; apice producto glaberrimo, columella triplicata.—Gmel. Syst. Nat. T. 1. p. 6. 3463. 102.
In the preceding plate ([plate 21]) we have introduced to the attention of our readers a figure of that truly interesting rarity the reversed Voluta Pyrum, or Pear Volute, or as it is better known in the familiar language of the English collectors by the appellation of the High spired Turnip Shell. The figure there delineated exhibits a frontal view of this shell, in which the characteristic aperture of the mouth is displayed to advantage. And in order that nothing on our part may be wanting to complete our observations on this very valuable curiosity, we have been induced to insert in the present instance, a back or posterior view of the same shell.
We have already entered so fully into the history of this shell in the description of the former plate, as to render it, we may presume, superfluous to dwell upon this subject further in the present instance. Our figure of the reversed shell, as in the former plate, is accompanied by a posterior view of a shell of the usual growth, (covered with its natural epidermis) and by the assistance of this figure, the contrary direction of the spiral wreath in the reversed shell becomes at once too obviously striking to escape attention.