MUREX. 503 
From these quotations it appears that the costly purple dye 
was an African production, and not obtaimed from the Eu- 
ropean coasts of the Mediterranean. Horace mentions the 
Murex of the Italian shores— 
** Murice Baiano melior Lucrina peloris.”’ 
This Murex of the Baiz may be our M. erinaceus, the M. un- 
datus, (Buccinum undatum auctorum,) or any other species ; it 
is not spoken of in connection with a dye, but as an edible 
shell-fish, inferior to the Peloris of the Lucrine lake: what 
this may be is quite conjectural. 
It must have been observed that the descriptions of the 
numerous Muricidal species are so similar as to give the idea 
of ringing the changes on the various organs, and it would 
appear that we have only exhibited the portraiture of a single 
animal inhabiting all the species that have been mentioned. 
If this view is acquiesced in, I shall have accomplished 
the object of my preliminary proposition, viz., that the 
Linnean genera Murex and Buccinum have been dismembered 
to an extent far beyond the requirements of the progress of 
science. 
I conclude by observing that it may be objected, that I 
have dispensed with all considerations of the figure and 
markings of the shell as contributing to generic distinction. 
I admit this position, as I am of opinion that when the ani- 
mals of a group are identical in essentials, the greater or less 
tumidity and the smooth or varicose aspect of the external 
hard parts are only specific indices arising from the various 
dispositions of the mucous glands of the mantle. I consider 
the causes I have mentioned, of the different aspects of the 
shells inhabited by similar animals, in no other light than the 
different aspects of the organs of the human race, which arise 
from similar agents, as the ever-varying disposition of the 
superficial ves, of the pores, absorbents, and other emunc- 
tories, combined with climate, food, and peculiar habits. + 
With regard to malacology, I am strongly supported in 
these opinions by having in my cabinet a large series of all 
the varieties of the Murex undatus (Buccinum undatum 
