PLATE CI.XIT. 



This very choice and curious shell wliich has been described by 

 the French naturahsts under the name of Venus belles lames and Fenus 

 lamellata, appears, upon the testimony of M. Lamarck, to have been 

 brought from the seas of New Holland into Europe by M. Perron 

 and Lesueur some years ago. 



Without presuming to offer any observation upon the priority 

 of claim which the naturalists of our own country may have to the 

 credit of producing in the first instance this beautiful conchological 

 production to the knowledge of Europe, it may be sufficient to state, 

 that we have ourselves known tliis sliell for some years in the 

 cabinets of our collectors, and that it was at least known in Britain 

 before the year 1818, the period in which the description of the 

 shell appeared in the writings of Lamarck. And. further it should be 

 added, that although it may perhaps admit of some dispute whether 

 the naturalists of France were not acquainted with the species before 

 those of Britain, the particular variety which we now produce is 

 confessedly acknowledged by M. Lamarck himself to have been 

 known to us while they were yet unacquainted with it ; this being 

 one among the number of those conchological rarities for which that 

 author was indebted to the liberal communications of our own 

 countryman, Alexander Mac.Leay, Esq. and which he describes upon 

 the sole authority of the example communicated to him by that 

 gentleman 



As the nature of the work of M. Lamarck admits of descrip- 

 tions only, and those in language not altogether familiar at least to 



* La variety (2) vient aossi de la I^Jouvelle Hollaiide et m'a hit com- 

 Kinniquee par M. Macleay/' T. 6. p. 693. 



