CONCHOLOGY. 



species which we have now before us, the Orange Cowry, or as it is 

 sometimes called, the " Morning Dawn." The beauty of this shell, as 

 well as scarcity, has established its celebrity ; the species is well known, 

 but few collections, excepting those of the more costly kind^ possess 

 the shell. Its magnitude is considerable, for its size is nothing inferior 

 to that of the Spotted Cowry, which ranks in this respect the chief 

 species of its family, while the distinction of its colour from that of all 

 other shells of the Cypraea tribe at once attracts particular attention. 



The colour of the back in this species is of a very fine orange, 

 simple, and unadorned with any marks or spots whatever. The tint 

 of orange varies in different shells from pale to darker, but whatever 

 may be its deviations in this respect, the tint of colour is constantly 

 deepest upon the back, and the transition as constantly becoming 

 gradually paler or more diluted as the colour descends upon the sides 

 towards the margin. This margin is rounded, projecting, and of a 

 pure white, except at the throat, as it is termed, where a tint of 

 red or reddish prevails to a small extent. The under surface of the 

 shell is white, except at the sides where the orange colour of the back 

 descends, spreads, and fades away into the white. The aperture of 

 the shell is a longitudinal opening down the middle as usual in the 

 other kinds of Cowry ; the surrounding region of the shell is a pure 

 white, but the edges of the opening, both which are beset with 

 numerous linear teeth, are of a fine orange. 



For the discovery of this extremely beautiful shell, like many 

 other acquisitions of importance in the cabinet of the Conchologist, 

 we stand indebted to the assiduities of that eminent Naturalist 

 Sir Joseph Banks, and those who accompanied him in the celebrated 

 voyage of Captain Cook round the world. They observed it among 



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