CONCHOLOGY 



TMs species of Voluta has long retained its reputation as a 

 shell of distinguished rarity ; it was very rare in the time of Kircher 

 and Bonanni, and it has continued scarce even to the present 

 period. At the sale of the Leverian collection, the example of 

 which the delineation is now before us, produced the sum of five 

 ^neas and a half : since that time other specimens of the same 

 species have occurred occasionally to observation, but which have 

 still maintained an equal price in proportion to their excellence or 

 perfection. The Leverian shell was a most select example, and 

 has not been sujpassed in point of beauty by any of the specimens 

 we have since seen. At the dissolution of that inestimable museum, 

 which happened in the year 1806, this admirable shell passed into 

 the. possession of the worthy secretary of the Linnaean Society, 

 A. Mc Leay> Esq. and it still constitutes apart of the fine ConcLo- 

 logical collection of that very eminent naturalist. ■ 



The late Dr, Solander, as it appears from, his manuscripts pre- 

 served in the library of the late worthy President of the Koyal 

 Society, Sir Joseph Banks, Bart, had designated this kind of Voluta 

 by the name of Nobilis ; it is a fine shell and not unworthy of that 

 distinguished appellation. It is however certain, that it is no other 

 than a variety of Voluta Scapha of the Linnasan school and as the 

 chan^in^ and transposition of names that are sufficiently explicit 



* This sheU, though sufficiently intelligible among the figures of Kircher's 

 shells, engraved and published by Bonanni, and also in the works of Lister 

 and some others, escaped the notice of Linnaeus. So late as the tenth edition 

 of Systema Natura it does not appear. Gmelin describes this shell with 

 much accuracy in his edition of the last mentioned work, under the specific 

 "name of Scapha. 



