PLATE LXXXIII. 



The Japanese Crown Melon Voluta is a shell of very unusual 

 occurrence in this country, and is for this reason held by Concholo- 

 gical collectors in no small estimation. At the first view, this shell 

 bears such a general resemblance to Voluta /Ethiopica, the Ethiopian 

 Crown Melon that it may be readily mistaken for a variety of that 

 shell ; it resembles also in the same distant manner Voluta Nautica, 

 and may likewise have been sometimes confounded with that shell. 

 The leading characters in which they differ having never been to our 

 knowledge explained, it will be proper in this place to point out those 

 characters which appear to us the most important to be considered 

 in offering an opinion upon the species and its analogies. 



From an extensive series of the whole of that tribe or family of 

 the Volutae, which are distinguished by the name of Melon Volutes, 

 now before us, we believe it may be in our power to develope ihe dif- 

 ference between them with at least some degree of precision. We 

 are quite aware that the variations in the growth of shells are often- 

 times considerable, and that the same species does not preserve the 

 same forms precisely in different countries, at the same time that they 

 never so entirely lose their characteristic peculiarities as to be mis- 

 taken by the experienced naturalist. The very rare occurrence of 

 the present species has precluded the possibility of collating the 

 characters of more than three or four of those shells in the course of 

 many years, but as these exhibit uniformly the same peculiarities, 

 and that the Ethiopian Crown Melon, to which it is nearly allied, is 

 sufficiently abundant to afford every opportunity for comparision in 

 all its states of growth, we have ventured to consider them specifically 

 distinct. The Japanese Crown Melon Volute is less ventricose than 

 Voluta Nautica of Lamarck, and more ventricose than Voluta iEthio- 



