SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Shell ovate ventricose, and somewhat globose, orange without spots: margin white: throat orange or sometimes rosy.
Cypræa Aurora: ovato-ventricosa, subglobosa, aurantiâ immaculatâ: margine alba, fauce aurantia vel incarnata.
Cypræa Aurantium: testa subturbinata aurantia margine alba immaculata fauce rutila. Gmel. Linn. Syst. Nat. T. 1. p. 6. 3403. 121.
Cypræa Aurora: testa ovato-ventricosâ, turgidâ subglobosâ, aurantiâ, immaculatâ; lateribus albis; fauce aurantiâ. Lamarck T. 7. 382. 14.
Every Conchologist is aware of the existence of this superb shell: its magnitude is considerable, and its colour too conspicuously distinct from that of all other species of its genus to be passed over without immediate observation.
The Cypræa generally are a tribe of shells peculiarly striking: the most common species possess an elegance of fervid colouring and politure that never fail to recommend them to attention. But a few years only have passed away, since the mantle decorations of the fire place in the apartments of fashion, besides images and jars of china porcellain, consisted of shells, among which the various kinds of Cowries were not esteemed the least ornamental. And they are sometimes still seen in such situations; while the grotesque statuary, the josses, and the dragons, of China and Japan, in conformity with a better taste, have wholly disappeared.
The shells of the Cypræa, genus which are most familiar to the generality of observers, are the spotted Cowries, and some others of usual occurrence. There are others which from their rarity are less extensively known, and among the number we may truly rank the species which we have now before us, the Orange Cowry, or as it is sometimes called, the “Morning Dawn.” The beauty of this shell, as well as scarcity, has established its celebrity; the species is well known, but few collections, excepting those of the more costly kind, possess the shell. Its magnitude is considerable, for its size is nothing inferior to that of the Spotted Cowry, which ranks in this respect the chief species of its family, while the distinction of its colour from that of all other shells of the Cypræa tribe at once attracts particular attention.
The colour of the back in this species is of a very fine orange, simple, and unadorned with any marks or spots whatever. The tint of orange varies in different shells from pale to darker, but whatever may be its deviations in this respect, the tint of colour is constantly deepest upon the back, and the transition as constantly becoming gradually paler or more diluted as the colour descends upon the sides towards the margin. This margin is rounded, projecting, and of a pure white, except at the throat, as it is termed, where a tint of red or reddish prevails to a small extent. The under surface of the shell is white, except at the sides where the orange colour of the back descends, spreads, and fades away into the white. The aperture of the shell is a longitudinal opening down the middle as usual in the other kinds of Cowry; the surrounding region of the shell is a pure white, but the edges of the opening, both which are beset with numerous linear teeth, are of a fine orange.