M UREX (Centronotus) radix, 

 Porcupine Manx. 



Genus Murex. Sub-genus Centronotus. JVob. 



Sub-Generic Character. 



See pi. 100. 



Specific Character. 



Shell ovate globuse, trasversely grooved ; with numerous varices, 

 armed with compressed, spine-like foliations : colour white; 

 the spines, base, and inner lip black. 



Murex radix. Gm. 3527. Lam. Syst. 7. 168. 



Centronotus radix was formerly a shell of excessive rarity, 

 but many specimens have latterly been brought from 

 Panama ; one of these, obligingly f en t t us jj V jy^. Q um _ 

 min, we have here figured of the natural size. 



We cannot too often place before the student those objects 

 in nature which seem more especially to illustrate that won- 

 derful system on which the whole has been created. In the 

 infinite diversity which pervades the works of "Him who 

 made us," two things have obviously been intended: one, the 

 manifestation of His power in the creation of the individual : 

 the other, an illustration of some important truth connected 

 with the spiritual welfare of mankind. The first is manifest, 

 and speaks to our senses : the second is emblematical, and 

 calls for an exertion of those reasoning faculties with which 

 the Creator, for such purposes, aided by those helps he has 

 promised, has given to us. In accordance with this latter 

 assumption, both divines and Naturalists concur in consi- 

 dering Nature as a book of Emblems, " where one thing 

 represents another." That this theory, resting heretofore on 

 general belief, is capable of mathematic definition, we have 

 elsewhere largely demonstrated, (North. Zool). And if, as 

 regards one division of animated nature the theory is correct 

 it follows that it will be equally manifested in all other 

 portions of the animal world, when they are sufficiently 

 investigated. Hence it is that remote resemblances between 

 objects, widely different in themselves, can be explained: 

 hence the analogy which the Glires bears to the Hedgehogs, 

 and to the Ceblepyrin.v ; and hence the resemblance between 

 this shell and the Porcupines ; an analogy the more singular, 

 as it extends even to the black and white colour of the spines. 



113. 



