COiNCHOI.OGY, 



which we have every reason for believing to be the only memorial of 

 this kind the pencil of the Arts have consecrated to the commemora- 

 tion of the shell : the only figure, we are assured, the proprietor ever 

 permitted to be taken from it. — Having premised so far^ it will not 

 be deemed superfluous to add, that the outline of the specimen is 

 precisely a fac-simile of the shell itself, having been traced round its 

 contour while lying upon the paper, and being afterwards finished in 

 colours upon the outlines so struck, with every attention an object so 

 estimable was presumed to merit. 



The history of this curious variety of the Imperial Sun Trochus 

 is altogether interesting, and deserves explicit mention ; it is one 

 among the number of those rare shells which were discovered by that 

 distinguished navigator, Captain Cook, in his voyage round the 

 world. It was fished up in the Straits that divide the Island of New 

 Zealand, now distinguished after him, by the appellation of Cook's 

 Straits. Upon the return of Captain Cook to England, he presented 

 Sir Ashton Lever, among other articles of great curiosity, with this 

 particular shell, the only one of its kind he had found. The Impe- 

 rial Sun Trochus, of an olivaceous violet hue, the shell which consti- 

 tutes the type of this species, though very scarce, occurred occasion- 

 ally, but this Pink variety only in the solitary instance before 

 adverted to: it was drawn up, adhering to the cable of the ship, 

 from the depth, as it appeared, of sixty fathoms water.* 



*This article is thus described in the last day's sale, lot 81, "An 

 elegant and unique pink variety of the imperial sun, drawn up with the 

 anchor of a ship, from the depth of sixty fathoms, in Cook's Straits, New 

 Zealand." Sold for £24 3s. 



