CYMBA. 



flowed in upon us so abundantly of late years, will find it 

 sufficiently overburthened, and will be disposed to admit 

 the probable expedience of even further divisions when 

 the science of conchology shall be more advanced. At 

 present, however, the only innovation intended is the 

 separation of Cymha^ part of the Gondolieres (Cymhiolce) 

 of Lamarck, comprising what have been called the Boat- 

 Melons, and Melo (part also of the same section) com- 

 prising both the simple and crowned Melons. 



The first of these genera is now before us, and ap- 

 pears to form a natural group of MoUusca^ whose shells 

 are marked by very distinguishing characters. The shells 

 are ventricose, light and buoyant, floating when placed 

 upon their backs on water, and having when so placed a 

 boat-like appearance. Their apex is rude and without 

 regularity of shape. They are sombre, and, for the most 

 part, uniform in colour. They are covered with a smooth 

 brown epidermis, which is, again, more or less coated (in 

 some instances, as in C. proboscidalis, entirely) with a 

 vitreous covering or enamel-like glaze, probably secreted 

 by the mantle. The columella is uniformly curved, 

 and, it is believed, that none of the species have hitherto 

 been found in the New World*. 



The Genus Cymba contains at present six species. 

 On an accurate inspection we shall find that the apex, 

 which in most of them can only be satisfactorily examined 



* Should it be asked, why the generic name Cymbium is not adopted from 

 Klein, Adanson, and Denys de Montfort ? it may be answered, that the term 

 Cymbium (not to insist on the greater propriety of Cymbal as a name for de- 

 noting a part of the Gondolieres) was used by Adanson in the year 1757, for a 

 Genus, which from the extreme simplicity of the structure of the shell, he 

 places at the head of the univalves, and which, under no system, could be deemed 

 even an approach to a turbinated shell with plaits on the pillar. Denys de 

 Montfort (in 1810) uses Cymbium to designate shells of which he makes Valuta 

 uSthiopica, Axxct. (the only species mentioned by him,) the generic type. Klein, 

 it is true, calls Adanson's Yet " Cymbium;" but Gualtieri had used the word in 

 1742, (eleven years before Klein publii-hed his '* Tentamen,") as a generic 

 name for those Mollusca, afterwards called Ai-gonautte by Linn^, who appears 

 to have first bestowed the latter name on the Paper Sailors. 



It may be added that De Blainville in his Malacologie" figures Cymba 

 Cymbium (V. Cymbium, Auct.) as an illustration of De Montfort's Genus; and 

 we therefore suppose that all the Gondolieres of Lamarck are considered to be- 

 long thereto. De Montfort gives the following as one reason for dividing his, 

 Genus from the Volutes " Le mamelon de leur coquille est particulier." A 

 glance at the apex of Cymba Neptuni, and that of Melo Indicus will shew their 

 striking difference. The apex of one is a shapeless mass j that of the other, 

 is regularly and beautifully fashioned. 



