CONCHOLOGY. 



The other occurred in the late Leverian Museum, which was distri- 

 buted by pubhc auction, in the year 1806. This last-mentioned 

 shell was in a less perfect condition than might be wished ; it was 

 worn and mutilated, and for this reason did not obtain by any means 

 such a price as was expected from its rarity : it produced only seven 

 guineas^ a sum considered much beneath its real value, even in its 

 injured state.* In the month of April, in the year 1815, the same 

 shell appeared in the sale of certain effects, the property of the 

 Duke de Bourbon, at his residence in Great Ormond Street, Port- 

 man Square, where it was sold, we believe, at an advanced price. It 

 is the figure of this last-mentioned shell that appears in the present 

 plate. We have delineated the specimen with all faults for the sake 

 of greater accuracy, and from a persuasion that the Naturalist would 

 prefer a correct representation from an undoubted original, to any 

 figure in which its actual defects might have been amended by the 

 pencil of the artist. The shell is depicted in its natural size, and it 

 will hence appear, is little inferior in point of magnitude to the 

 generality of those shells of the same species which are not of the 

 reversed kind. The species is sometimes known to grow to the 

 length of seven or eight inches, but such examples are not common. 

 Of the reversed kinds the Leverian specimen, as it has been empha- 

 tically denominated, is probably one of the largest known. 



The smaller figure in the lower part of our plate is a represen- 

 tation of the same species in its usual form, and appears clothed or 

 covered with the thick filmy epidermis, of a brown colour, with which 



* Vide Catalogue Lev. Mus. " Last day, July 12th, 1806, Ipt 77. The 

 reversed variety of the High Spired Turnip, from Madagascar, extremely 

 rare. £7. 7s/' p. 15. 



R 



