70 THE TYRIAN PURTLE. 



exhausted.* " It is very plain, from their account, corro- 

 borated as it is by many other testimonies, that univalve 

 shell-fish did furnish this dye ; and there can be no hesitation 

 in rejecting as entirely groundless the opinion of Mr. Bruce, 

 the Abyssinian traveller, that the purple-fish at Tyre was 

 only a concealment of the Tyrian's knowledge of cochineal, -j- 

 The exact species of shell-fish which furnished the true 

 dye has, however, been made a subject of particular inquiry 

 and of some dispute ; for here, as in relation to many other 

 objects of natural history, the descriptions of the ancients are 

 so vague, that the attainment of certainty is often impossible. 

 It may be safely inferred from Pliny's account, that there 

 were several species, all of them referable to the genera 

 Murex and Buccinum of Linnaeus, and native, one of them 

 to the shores at Tyre ; another or the same to Africa within 

 the island Meninx or Zerbi, and by Getulia ; another to 

 Laconica in Europe, — these affording a dye of different in- 

 tensities of colour, presumed to depend on certain specialities 

 in the food or in the nature of the soil. \ Fabius Columna, 

 a Neapolitan nobleman, and the best authority on this ques- 

 tion, believes that the Purpura of Pliny is the Murex trun- 

 culus of Linnaeus (Fig. 11), one of the commonest shells of 

 the Mediterranean^ while the Buccinum of the Roman 

 naturalist may be the Purpura patula (Lamk.), though the 

 correspondency of external characters is, in the latter in- 

 stance, less exact. The Purpura lapillus so abundant on 

 our own, and on the shores of Europe in general, is very 

 likely to have been the principal of the lesser sort of Purples ; 

 but it is impossible for us to give assent to the conjectures 

 of M. Lesson, 1 1 that the ancient purpuriferous Buccinum was 

 the Ianthina fragilis, because the coloured liquid excreted 

 by this singular mollusk is purple on its emission, is con- 

 tained within a gland of a different character from a vein, 

 and is remarkably defective in permanency, the very quality 



* Thomson's Hist, of Chemistry, i. 91. + Travels, i. 63, Introd. 



X Purple dye was obtained from the Murex, Purpura, and Conchylium. 

 Pliny mentions also the Buccinum and Pelagium. The Buccinum alone was 

 not approved of ; but when united with the Pelagium, gave a deep bright 

 colour. The dye of the Conchylium appears to have been less deep than 

 that of the Purpura. Pliny distinguishes three shades of colour — tyrium or 

 purpura, amethystinum, and conchylium. The first was like congealed 

 blood or deep crimson ; the second like the amethyst or violet ; the 

 third a lighter pink or blue, as in the plants heliotropium, malva, and viola 

 scrotina. He also says that the conchylium had a strong unpleasant smell, 

 and resembled in colour the sea in a storm. 



§ Dr. Wilde has proved that this was one of the shells, and probably the 

 principal one. Ann. Nat. Hist. iii. 271. 



|| Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist. i. 389. 



