CONCHOLOGY. 



with the brown or testaceous kind : two examples of the white variety, 

 clouded with yellow, appears to have occurred in the celebrated 

 cabinet of the French collector Davilla, about the year 1776. He 

 distinguishes them by the title of " deux petites epineuses and 

 tells us they have six longitudinal sides like the " rameuses,''' which 

 m-e also named " Pattes de crapaud,'' an epithet by which we are 

 Well aware the Linnsean Murex Scorpio was discriminated, and which 

 therefore leads to a conclusion that the " epineuses'' of a white 

 colour, clouded with yellow, which that cabinet contained, were not 

 specifically distinct from the shell at present under our consideration. 

 When extremely fine the white variety of this shell is usually very 

 delicately tinged with violet in all its shades and transitions of light. 



AH these varieties, as before observed, are very easily reconciled 

 to the same species; nor is it ourselves alone that are inclined to 

 this opinion. Seba, to whom the larger brown and white variety, were 

 known, admits them as the same without any hesitation.* The expres- 

 sion " Testa alba aut fusctty'' in the Linnaean description of this shell 

 in the cabinet of the Queen of Sweden, implies the like persuasion, 

 and the authority of Chemnitz may be adduced still further in support 

 of this opinion : Some modern writers have thought differentl}^, but 

 we must confess the distinctions they assign are by no means satis- 

 factory to us. The larger shell is usually of a brown colour, but we 



* " Horum processus admodum producti sunt ; ut ideo Cornua cervina 

 appellentur ob qualemcunque similitudinem. Corpus tamen Cochleae 

 semper prorationc ramorum minus est, quam in Muricibus superioribus."* — 

 Seha T. 3. tab. 77. p. 172. 



* As Murex ramoms, of which several varieties are given in the plates 

 Seba, Murex Saxatilis, &c. 



