EXOTIC CONCIIOLOGY. 11 



brilliant orange mouth and the deep brown hue of the pillar lip quickly undeceive 

 us. The colour is usually grey, with w^avy brown longitudinal lineations, and broad 

 transverse bands at the thickened edge of the outer lip, which become obsolete ere 

 they meet the nodulous zones which gird its volutions. I know not its precise 

 locality. It averages in length three inches. 



Family— VOLUTIDiE. 



Shell destitute of a channel ; the base truncated and notched : the piUar marked with 



folds or plaits : no operculum. 

 Sub-Family — Volutin/e. Spire shorter than the aperture, -which is never striated ; 



piUar with distinct plaits, the upper ones the shortest : tip of the spire papillaiy. 

 Genus — Voluta. Shell large and ventricose, the spire extremely short, very obtuse, and 



papillary, the terminal whorls, where they exist, being smooth and unsculptured. 



TURBINELLirORM TYPE. 



V. DIADEMA. THE DIADEM. 



Plate VI. 



Testa, ventricosa, fulvo-aurantia aut albo marmorata aut venis longitudinalibus spadiceis 

 flexuosis subreticulata : spira spinis fornicatis rectiusculis coronata : columella 

 3-pHca(a. 



V. Diadema, Lam. Ans. sans V. 7. p. 329. no. 2. 



F. Ethiopica. var. E. Dilw. p. 574. no. 178. Gualt. 29. h. Marti, vol. 3. tab. 74. 

 fig. 780, 783. Enc. Met. 388. fig. 2. Kiener, Volutre, pi. 7, 8. 



Shell oval-ventricose, either marbled with white upon a ground of orano-e- 

 brown, or pale fulvous subreticulated by wavy masses of a deep chesnut. The first 

 few of the six or seven whorls which compose its short and mammillary spire are 

 smooth, but the last two are crowned with a range of moderate sized, concave, and 

 nearly erect spines, which however by age gradually disappear towards the outer 

 lip (a character not peculiar indeed to this species, but participated in by most if 

 not all the Crowned Melons.) The mouth is large, oval-oblong, pale yellow, and 

 sometimes bright orange, and the pillar is sculptured with three oblique plaits, 

 placed at equal distances from each other. In young individuals (in which state 

 we have figured it) the colours are usually lighter, and the markings resolve them- 

 selves into two rows of irregular-shaped maroon-coloured spots ; whilst specimens 

 which have attained any considerable age, lose their mottled appearance and assume 

 a uniform tint. Size seven inches. Habitat Asiatic ocean. 



