E. Donovan

“ There is not, throughout the very ample range of the creation which the feathered tribes present to our consideration, a race of beings more deservedly admired for their beauty than the Humming-Birds. Natives of the warmer climates of the globe: of countries where the fervour of a tropic sun calls forth the spontaneous productions of the earth bedecked in gaiety unexampled in other regions of the earth, these little beings seem to participate in all its genial influence. With forms the most pleasing for symmetry and elegance they combine a brilliancy of colours the most splendid ”

“ Among these people this shell is called the Chank, or Sacred Chank, the emblem of an attribute of the divine power, and is constantly seen in one of the hands of the Indian Deity Vishnu, as a type of the renovation of the earth from the waters of the deluge.—The cause of this catastrophe of the earth, the deluge, they attribute to the wickedness of mankind in remote ages, which incensing the divine Brahma, he caused a flood of the waters to overflow the earth and destroy every vestige of the creation, animate and inanimate, that existed upon its surface. ”

“ The singular object now before us, a shell no less remarkable for the peculiarity of its form than rarity of occurrence, is one of the most choice productions of the seas surrounding the Friendly Isles. The discovery of this shell, like that of many others, resulted from the assiduities of that eminent Naturalist and promoter of scientific knowledge, the late Sir Joseph Banks, and of Dr. Solander, who accompanied him in that memorable voyage of Captain Cook to the Southern Hemisphere, in which the Friendly Isles were discovered. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are few beings of the feathered race more peculiarly distinguished for the splendid gaiety and rich variety of colours with which their plumage is adorned than the parrot race; for however they may differ in size from the magnitude of a kite or hawk, to that of the comparative diminutive thrush or sparrow, they are almost uniformly beautiful in this particular, and exhibit a diversity that is scarcely found in any other tribe. The species we have selected for our present representation is one of the smaller kinds of the family distinguished by the name of Parrakeets. ”

“ We cannot for a moment hesitate to believe that in announcing to our readers the introduction of the Pink, or Roseate Imperial Sun Trochus: the significant appellation under which the present rarity has been for many years distinguished, we shall awaken the attention of every Conchologist and amateur of the science. The shell so named, formerly constituted an object, no less conspicuous than beautiful, among the Conchological productions treasured together in the once celebrated Leverian Museum. ”

“ In a natural classification of the shell tribe, should we ever arrive at an arrangement of Conchology, so perfect as to deserve that epithet, it would be a task of some difficulty to fix the precise station of the Wentletrap; for in the order of nature it presents anomalies which cannot easily be reconciled, and few authors are agreed upon this subject even in the artificial arrangements which they have been induced to adopt. Thus Rumpfius makes it a Buccinum, Davila a Tuyau, Argenville places it as a Terebra (vis) and De Montfort Scalarus. ”

“ The prevailing colour of the plumage a rich vernal green, deepest in its hues on the back and wings, and rather paler or more delicate in its tint beneath; the breast and rump scarlet; the feathers of the latter elongated and extending far over the tail, which is green; the crown of the head a beautiful Sapphirine blue. This appears to be the male bird. That which is considered as the female has a yellow spot upon the throat: it is destitute of any scarlet spot upon the breast, and the Sapphirine colour on the crown of the head is also wanting. ”

“ Sometimes we are assured the colour inclines to rufous, or a reddish tint. Lamarck has this shell of a pale fulvous colour, with the ribs as usual, white, for he adopts this as part of the leading character of the species; his expression is “pallide fulva; costis albis.”
The animal inhabitant of this shell has the head armed with two feelers, each ending in a setaceous thread or hair: the eye is placed upon the tentacula at the base of this thread or hair, and it has also a kind of trunk at the mouth, by means of which it searches for its food amongst the sand and weeds. ”

“ The Entomologist of the present day must naturally remain under some uncertainty as to the identity of the Fabrician Papilio Pylades, since no figure whatever has hitherto appeared in elucidation of this rare Papilio; and in this instance, as in almost every other, whatever advantage we may be able to derive from the very accurate and elaborate descriptions of our author, it would be absurd to deny that a faithful delineation of the insect described, is not essentially requisite, in order to determine with perfect satisfaction, the precise species Fabricius had intended. ”

“ It may be lastly observed that the progressive growth of this extraordinary rarity may be determined by the greater number of the longitudinal ribs that pass over and surround the tube of the whorls, for at each increase the animal forms a new mouth to its shell: the new mouth as it is protruded and formed, appears like the former ones, entirely surrounded by a rim or ring, and it is these rings of the mouths as they are formed in succession, that constitute the ribs which appear to traverse the shell as it is increased in length, and consequently in the number of its rings. ”

“ The history of this splendid species of Tanager is unknown to Naturalists: we are aware only, that independently of the varieties arising from its different states of plumage, there are two pretty distinct and accurately defined varieties, one of which has the head of a fine green, the other of a rich blue. Some authors consider these two birds as specifically different, while others are as well assured they are the same. Dr. Latham observes that these birds are, without doubt, the same, differing only in sex, but which of them is the male is not ascertained. ”

“ No classic reader of the Halieutics of Oppian will doubt the general acquaintance of the ancients with those beings in their native element, nor will any one imagine, who is conversant with the lives of the philosophers of the infant ages of the world, that the study of Conchology, even as a science, was unknown. So many writings of the ancients, even of the classic ages of Greece and Rome, have disappeared, that it may be now impossible to form any very accurate conclusions, at the same time that enough remains to justify our persuasion that it was far from inconsiderable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Denys de Montfort speaking of the species Nerita Peloronata, a shell abounding on the shores of the Antilles, observes that there are male and female animals of this kind, the two sexes being isolated or distinct individuals; they are of an amphibious nature, living in the sea, from whence they ascend occasionally and crawl about the rocks.
Linnæus under the Nerita genus comprehends as well the imperforated or non-umbilicated kinds as those which have that perforation. The later continental writers divide these again, retaining the name Nerita to those which have no perforation ”

“ Considering the very zealous propensity of some French Naturalists of the present day, and of their admirers in England, to create new genera upon every slight occasion, it becomes a matter of some astonishment that a character so very obvious as the disjunction of the tube from the aperture to the very summit should not have laid the foundation of a new genus, for the reception of this shell. ”

“ If in the preceding instances we have produced some novelties worthy of particular attention, the present shell, in point of value as well as beauty, must also lay a distinguished claim to our consideration. This is one of those rare varieties of Conus Ammiralis denominated the Cedo Nulli, or Cedo Nulli pretiossissimus, in allusion to the incomparable value affixed to the varieties of this peculiar species. The importance attached to the shells of this kind may indeed be best conceived by stating that some of its varieties have been valued at twenty, fifty, and one hundred guineas ”

“ The history of this curious variety of the Imperial Sun Trochus is altogether interesting, and deserves explicit mention; it is one among the number of those rare shells which were discovered by that distinguished navigator, Captain Cook, in his voyage round the world. It was fished up in the Straits that divide the Island of New Zealand, now distinguished after him, by the appellation of Cook’s Straits. Upon the return of Captain Cook to England, he presented Sir Ashton Lever, among other articles of great curiosity, with this particular shell, the only one of its kind he had found. ”

“ These feathers the little creature has the power of raising or depressing at pleasure: when these are displayed in full array on each side of the green patch on the front of the neck, and the crest stands erect, which is invariably the case when the bird is offended or surprised, the appearance of this bird is altogether remarkable. The female has neither the ruff on the neck nor the crest, and its colours are in general more obscure than in the male. ”

“ That it may not be imagined we feel any disposition to object against those changes in the Science of Conchology, which the more advanced state of our present knowledge may demand, we have no hesitation in adding that in our own opinion the Harpa family should constitute a very distinct tribe from the other Buccini; we believe, also, that had Linnæus lived to reconsider them, he would have comprehended them together as a genus. The French writers have long since done so. De Monfort advances that Lamarck was the first who separated the Harps from the Linnæan Buccinum. ”

“ The two last-mentioned shells which Lamarck concludes to be varieties of the same species, may perhaps prove hereafter to be species distinct from each other, as Lamarck has himself shewn to be the case with respect to the common black and the white hammer shells. The black supposed variety of Malleus Normalis we apprehend to be distinct from the shell before us, but it is possible that the New Holland shell which he describes as being whitish, with the lobe at the base abbreviated, may be a worn or much depauperated specimen of our present shell ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some he allows to remain varieties, while others constitute, in his ideas, species nearly analogous, but nevertheless distinct. He does not propose the formation of an independant genus of the Harp family, nor the removal of those shells from the genus Buccinum, in which Linnæus places the species Harpa: he proposes only to assemble together the least equivocal varieties of that shell, together with that which he considers as the type of the Linnæan species, the true Harpa Nobilis of preceding authors; and to allow the others to remain as species distinct from the Linnæan shell. ”

“ Solander. We have compared our shell with the acknowledged type of the Linnæan species, with every attention, and are compelled, in truth, to allow, that however distinct it may appear upon the first glance of inspection, we cannot implicitly accede to the persuasion of its being specifically distinct. Placing this remarkable variety with that particular shell, the true Buccinum Harpa, the less informed Conchologist would assume as certain that the difference existing between the two removed them sufficiently from each other. ”

“ When we consider the very remote situation of those islands, so distant from the usual track of all navigators, we cannot be surprised, admitting the species to be local in those seas, to find it has remained a very rare shell from the period of its discovery to the present time. ”

“ The shell we have selected for the figures in the annexed plate is chosen rather for its extreme perfection than the superiority of size; we have observed it larger by nearly one half, but have not in any instance met with one more entirely perfect: it is delineated from the example of this very curious species in the late Leverian Museum.
This species which for a century past or more has maintained its reputation as a rare production is still held in much esteem, and bears a price proportionately considerable: it inhabits the shores of Southern Asia. ”

“ As a new species, it appears, therefore, pretty certain that we have to acknowledge the late Dr. Shaw as the first author by whom this interesting bird was introduced to the knowledge of the learned world: he describes it, as before observed, under the name of Pipra punctata. M. Vieillot is consequently in an error when he refers to authority of Dr. Latham for this name. The bird was so designated in the first instance, in the work entitled the Naturalist’s Miscellany, written by Dr. Shaw; nor was the species mentioned by Dr. Latham either in his Synopsis or his Index Ornithologicus. ”

“ We say, only the presumed varieties, because in the present state of the Conchological Science there appears to be a very strong propensity among collectors to increase the number of the species, by considering every trivial variation, or accidental circumstance in the growth of shells, as so many characteristic indications of new species; a disposition that the best Conchologists cannot but disapprove. Experience teaches us that there is no class of beings in the creation, in which nature is more sportive, than the testaceous tribes ”

“ The oyster, moreover, as it lies in the shell, seems capable of expanding or spreading that part of the body which lies under the hinge laterally upon and into these depressions, a circumstance very easily observed in the half famished oyster, because these lateral expansions of the animal are then more visibly elongated along the passage of these lateral grooves of the hinge, and give the pointed end of the animal a somewhat cornuted appearance. ”

“ This curious Papilio is one of the larger species of the Heliconi tribe to which it appertains. The wings are a blueish black, and rather closely studded with sub-hyaline or transparent spots, which are minutely speckled with black: those on the anterior wings are somewhat sagittate and disposed into two irregular bands towards the exterior half of the wings: those on the posterior wings are rather larger and more inclining to an ovate form; and three of the largest, namely, one at the base, and two at the anal angle, are of a bright yellow colour. ”

“ And, although it does not at this time bear a price so very great as that which it bore some years ago, it is yet considered as a shell of no mean value when it is large and in fine perfection: even those of a smaller size, when in good condition, are esteemed of value, at least in some proportion to those more estimable for their perfection.
The rarity of this choice and very curious shell arises from various causes. In the Chinese seas, which it chiefly inhabits, the species is very rare ”