2 GENUS HARPA. 
species, and the shells are of a very agreeable and elegant 
figure, adorned with beautiful colors, varying in their distribu- 
tion, and are particularly remarkable.for the oblique ribs, whose 
arrangement has probably contributed to the establishment of 
the generic name. Linnzus, and the authors who had preceded 
him, blending in one group, species, which a more careful in- 
vestigation has since divided, gave them the name of Bucctnum 
harpa; nevertheless, the Harps have a peculiar appearance, 
which makes them very different from other genera. Lamarck, 
after examining the characteristics of these shells, forthwith 
separated them from the Buccina, to arrange them in his family 
Purpurifere, between the Dot1um and Cassis ; and this classifi- 
cation has been generally observed by authors who have suc- 
ceeded him, throughout the methodical arrangements which 
they have successively proposed. Cuvier, in his Regne Ani- 
male, placed this genus between the Tuns and Purpure, in his 
family of the Buccina. De Blainville, in his Malacologie, in- 
cluded it (between Buccrnum and Dottum) in his third group, 
which contains the ampullaceous shells, and makes part) of his 
second family Entomostomata. 
So that these writers, and those who have followed them, 
retain for the Harps very nearly the situation which Lamarck 
had assigned them. Lately, a knowledge of the animal has only 
confirmed the truth of those observations, which the study of the 
shell had suggested to him. 
M. Reynaud, surgeon-major of the corvette La Chevrette, upon 
his return from a voyage round the world, first published in the 
fifth volume of the Memoires de la Societé d’ Histoire Naturelle, 
the anatomy of the animal, and its different peculiarities. But 
we are particularly indebted to the learned observations of Quoy 
and Gaimard for a more perfect knowledge of its organization, 
and of all its anatomical parts, which have been figured in the 
Atlas of the Voyage de [ Astrolabe, pl. 42. 
The external form of the animal of the Harpa greatly resem- 
bles that of the Dotium and the neighboring genera, in the con- 
formation of the head and that of the tentacule; but it appears 
to be separated somewhat from the Buccinum by its digestive 
organs, although the differences which are observed between 
