and forty-five ; and the additions will all bear the test laid down by Linnaeus as characteristic of 

 the genus Voluta, for they have all plaits on the pillar of the shell. 



With all the veneration with which the name of Linnaeus impresses us, it is impossible not to 

 feel that there is justice in the following strictures by Lamarck, " Le genre Voluta de Linne, 

 " quoique caracterise d'une maniere assez distincte, d'apres la consideration de l'existence des 

 " plis sur la columelle de la coquille, est tres peu naturel ; car il re unit des coquillages de families 

 " diffe rentes qu'il faut distinguer, separer et ecarter, parce qu'elles ne s'avoisinent point. I] 

 " eomprend effectivement des coquilles a ouverture entiere, comme les Auricules ; d'autres a 

 " ouverture canaliculee a la base, comme les Fasciolaires et les Turbinelles qui avoisinent les 

 " Rochers; enfin, d'autres encore dont l'ouverture est simplement echancree a sa base, comme 

 " celle des buccins, etc.: ce qui lui donne une etendue extremement considerable, nuisible a 

 " l'etude desespeces, et defectueuse a l'egard des rapports entre les objets reunis."* 



If any disciple of Linnaeus should be disposed to consider the French naturalist somewhat 

 severe, let him remember that, at the time when Lamarck wrote, the number of recent species 

 of Volutae, strictly Linnean, had increased from forty-five to two hundred and eighty-eight. f 



Since the appearance of Lamarck's Work, the researches of naturalists have brought to 

 light such numbers to swell the catalogue, that the species of many of these genera are increased 

 two-fold, and even three-fold. Lamarck then may be pardoned for declaring that the extent 

 of a genus comprehending all these heterogeneous Testacea, is "nuisible a l'etude des especes 

 " et defectueuse h. l'egard des rapports entre les objets reunis." 



Bruguieres was the first effectual reformer of this disordered state of things, and he separated 

 from this genus, over-grown even in his time, all those species which were without a notch at 

 the base. Lamarck carried the reformation further, and separated from it the genera Mitra, 

 Columbella, Marginella, Cancellaria, and Turbinella, leaving only those shells which constitute 

 his genus Voluta, an assemblage of Trachelipoda all marine, carnivorous, and breathing through 

 the medium of sea-water only; with plaits on the pillar of the shell, and a notch at its base, 

 but destitute of an operculum. Of the genus thus modified, Linnaeus recorded only seven 

 species, Lamarck has published forty-four ; and the readers of this work mil see what a number 

 of new species has enriched our cabinets since the appearance of Lamarck's work. 



The genus Voluta as left by Lamarck, has undergone a still further division into the genera 

 Cymba, Melo, and Voluta ; and we are now about to present to the reader a Monograph of the 

 first of these genera. 



Before, however, we proceed to a consideration of the genus Cymba, it may be satisfac- 

 tory, in the midst of the difficulties which a conchologist has to encounter, to mark the progress 

 of knowledge arising from the information which even the exuviae of Testacea, when received 

 in a natural state, throw upon his studies. The seventh Volume of the Animaux sans vertebres 

 was published in August, 1822 ; and Lamarck there says of his genus Voluta, " Les 



» Lam. Anim. sans vertebres, Tom. VII, p. 327. 



f Viz. Voluta, Lam., 44, Mitra, 80. Marginella, 22. Turbinella, 25. Columbella, 18. Auricula, 14. Cancellaria, 12. Tomatella, 6. 

 Volvaria, 5. Oliva, 62. 



