Damon — Shells from Pompeii. 293 



treating sea or of currents in shallow water. To this must have 

 succeeded a period of depression, during which the mussel beds wefe 

 formed, and then the whole was gradually upheaved above the sea, 

 probably — at any rate in the case of the Great Ormeshead — not 

 quite uniformly. 



II. — Notes on a Collection of Eecent Shells discovered among 

 THE EuiNS OF Pompeii, and preserved in the Museo Borbon- 

 ico at Naples. 



By Robert Damon, F.G.S. 



MONG the many singular discoveries made in the ruins of 

 Pompeii, and deposited in that most interesting of Museums, 

 the Museo Borbonico, in the city of Naples, are a variety of shells, 

 principally species now found in the Mediterranean Sea, and so far of 

 interest as an illustration of the persistency of certain known species 

 within the historic period, no difference whatever being observable 

 between the disinterred and living specimens. On a close examination 

 I observed, besides those from the neighbouring seas, species from 

 distant countries, for example: — Conus textilis, Triton femorale, 

 Meleagrina margaritifera (Pearl Oyster), species only found in the 

 Indian and Eastern seas. I think, therefore, that this may be re- 

 garded as part of a Natural History collection. Assuming the truth 

 of this conjecture, its antiquity is without a precedent. Did the original 

 proprietor form one of a Natural History Society of Pompeii, of 

 which the distinguished Naturalist Pliny, who perished at Pompeii, 

 was a member ? It would also be curious, in these days of research 

 for priority of names, to know how they were described. Such a dis- 

 covery might disturb existing nomenclature, and increase the per- 

 plexity already felt in naming collections. But laying aside fanciful 

 conjectures, the collection is further instructive from the condition 

 and perfect preservation in which the specimens are found, after an 

 interment of nearly 1,800 years. Besides the collection in the Museo 

 Borbonico, there is still standing in a villa at Pompeii, a fountain 

 decorated with shells of the Mediterranean, one species of which, viz. 

 Murex Brandaris, retains its colour and general freshness and is not to 

 be distinguished from living examples ; while the same species, from 

 the Italian Tertiaries, are colourless and in that friable condition 

 characteristic of shells even of the most recent geological period, point- 

 ing, like other discoveries, to the great antiquity of the most modem 

 Tertiary deposits as compared with the era of the human race. 



The following is a list of the species which I was able to identify 

 in the Museo Borbonico : — 



Triton nodiferum, Lam. 



„ corrugatum. Lam, 



,, Jemorale, Lin. sp. 

 Murex Brandaris, Lin. 



,, trunculus, Lin. 

 Dolium oleare, Lin. 

 Gyprcsa pantherina, Solan. 



„ lurida, Lin. 

 I^urbo rugosus, Lin. 

 Conus textilis, Lin. 

 Pecten Jacobceus, Lin. 



Pectunctdus siculus, Reeve P. glycimeris 

 var Lam. 

 „ violascens, Lam. 



Meleagrina margaritifera, Lin. 

 Tapes pullastra, Forbes & Hanley. 

 Lutraria elliptica. Lam. 

 Cardium echinatum. Lam. 



„ rusticum, Lin. 

 Helix pomatia and other Helices of the 

 district. 



Wktmouth, April, 1867. 



