PLATE XI. 



In the general computation of the value of the various articles 

 in the Museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever, submitted to govern- 

 ment, previous to the grant of the Lottery which transferred the 

 possession of that Museum from its original founder to the hands of 

 Mr. Parkinson, this shell was estimated at the value of one hundred 

 g'liineas: and as this valuation was arbitrary, that sum was considered 

 as the worth of the shell while it remained in the Museum. At the 

 final dissolution of this Museum, which took place in the months of 

 May, June, and July of the year 1806, this shell, like the rest, was 

 submitted to the chance of taste or caprice : it was sold on the last 

 day of the sale, for the sum of twenty three guineas, an amount con- 

 siderably below its former valuation, but sufficient, nevertheless, to 

 shew that its attractions were still great in the mind of the connoisseur. 



The purchaser of this shell v/as at that time unknown, subse- 

 quently, however, the specimen appeared among the property sold at 

 the residence of the Duke de Bourbon, immediately after the depar- 

 ture of that noblemen for France, in the beginning of the year 1815.* 

 Dr. Leach has since that time informed us that he had given instruc- 

 tions for the purchase of this shell for the British Museum : the 

 shell does not, however, appear in that collection, and the lamented 

 illness of our ingenious friend, is likely, for the present, to preclude 

 all further inquiry respecting its final destination. 



It does not appear that this very curious variety of the Imperial 

 Sun Trochus is known in any of the continental cabinets : the 

 olivaceous kind, which as before observed, is to be regarded as the 



* In Orchard-street, Portman-square, Thursday, April 13th, 1816. 

 Vide lot 84. 



