Animal a limax. Shell univalve, convolute and turbinate. Aperture effuse, longitudinal, linear, without teeth, entire at the base: pillar smooth.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Shell with rough punctures at the base.
Conus Ammiralis: testa basi punctato scabra.
Conus Ammiralis: testa basi punctato. Linn. Syst. Nat. 10 p. 714. n. 257.—Mus. Lud. Ulr. 553. n. 157. Gmel. Linn. Syst. Nat. 3378. 10.
Conus Ammiralis var Amboinensis. α. Spire high and tapering; shell pyriform, glossy, smooth, pale yellowish with two broad bands of testaceous marked with large subsaggitate oval spots of white, and a narrow band between composed of white spots and intermediate testaceous dots.
Were it within the contemplation of our present views to enter into the ancient history of the science of Conchology, we should be under little difficulty in demonstrating upon the authority of the best informed historians as well as ancient classics that it has a claim to very remote antiquity. The study of Shells prevailed, at least to some extent, in those early times when the generality of mankind believe the world to have been buried in the depths of ignorance. At periods, even when some among those of better information may be inclined to imagine that the ancients could have had no very accurate conceptions of the nature of these bodies, or of their classification, natural or artificial, and even when it might be supposed from the warlike temper of the age the collecting of shells would have been deemed an unworthy occupation, we discover sufficient indications to prove that their leisure hours were so employed. The productions of the sea were delineated in their manuscripts; Pliny speaks of the delight the artist took in painting the asterias, or sea stars. The spontaneous offerings of the ocean were depicted in their natural colours upon the walls of their dwellings, abundant evidence of which appears among the ancient paintings of Herculaneum and Pompeii; and that the shells themselves were sometimes collected by the ancients is placed beyond a doubt from those remains which have been found, at various times, among the relics of those celebrated ruins, and also among the ruins of the Roman town, perhaps no less ancient, denominated La Scava.
It is declared by Pliny, in the ninth book of his Natural History, that the Romans of his time were better acquainted with the productions of the sea than the animals of the land, a circumstance he attributes, and unquestionably with sufficient reason, to the extravagant excess to which the luxurious taste of those times was carried. This will excite the less surprise when we recollect the various useful results deduced from this investigation. Of these we have several very memorable examples; the exquisite dyes of green, the scarlet, and the imperial purple, which they possessed and prized so eminently, were all the produce of testaceous bodies. And so likewise the pearls gathered from the various perlaceous bivalve shells; and pearls we are assured were in those days valued at Rome, as in Egypt, at a price infinitely beyond that of gold and gems, the diamond alone excepted.
Pliny tells us, that, in his time, after the diamonds of India and Arabia, pearls were esteemed most precious, and that we may be under no error as to the application of the text to the pearls found in shells, he further adds, that he had before spoken of these pearls in his book that treats upon the productions of the sea[[1]]. The diamonds in those times were so scarce, and esteemed so highly, as to be little known, except among princes, the smaller and most inferior kinds alone excepted. The pearls were the most costly jewels employed in the ornaments for the ears, the neck, and fingers of the fair sex, and the shells themselves were converted into various articles of finery for their wardrobe and furniture.