VOLUTA. Q15 
the same genus rudely figured by Bonanni, are confused in the 
synonymy, and the two former lie loose and uninscribed in the 
Linnean collection. Both of them, indeed, might equally pass 
for the Voluta porphyria of the diagnosis ; yet, since the specific 
epithet must be assigned to one alone, authors have acted 
wisely in bestowing it exclusively upon the former, which both 
answers more precisely to the specified characters and locality, 
and had been termed “ Porphyria” before the days of Linneus. 
Of the published references those of Argenville, and Gualtier, 
f. P, can alone be retained; the other drawings were, in all 
probability, only cited from the general resemblance they 
present (not being coloured) to the more typical forms: the 
painting of Regenfuss might be considered exceptional ; it has, 
however, been erased, with the remark “ad sequent.” in the 
revised copy of the tenth edition of the ‘Systema.’ In the 
details of the ‘Museum Ulric’ the assertion, ‘ Labium inte- 
rius—in medio scabrum striis transversis ferrugineis. Faux 
sepius virescens” (a misprint? for violascens), may not be 
peculiarly applicable to O. porphyria (Sowerby, Genera Shells, 
Oliva), but is assuredly opposed to the features of O. erythro- 
stoma. 
Voluta oltba, 
Almost all the Olive known to the ancients are mingled 
together in the Linnean cabinet, as promiscuously as_ their 
figures are grouped together in the twelfth edition of the 
‘Systema’ and in the ‘Museum Ulrice,’ where any Olive with 
the meagre qualifications of a short spire and prominent cal- 
losity was entitled to the appellation of Voluta Oliva. 
It is not of momentous importance, to ascertain what mem- 
ber of the genus should be regarded as pre-eminently entitled 
to the name, since the specific epithet must necessarily be 
changed, through the elevation of “Oliva” to the rank of a 
generic appellation; still it is not unworthy of remark that the 
Oliva nigrita of Karsten (O. Maura of Sowerby, Genera Shells) 
has been indicated as the principal variety or form in the 
‘Museum Ulrice,’ and that all the cited engravings (Argenville 
