13 I S T R IEUTIO 
OF 
AUSTRALASIAN VOLUTES, 
BY 
JAMES O. COX, M.D. 
Reeve observes in his '‘Elements of Oonchology” that the Volutes 
were termed by an accomplished writer the nobles of the Testacea , 
just as Linnaeus in his admiration of the palms called them the 
princes of the vegetable world. 
Of a genus, so justly eulogised, the Southern Hemisphere fur¬ 
nishes not only by far the greatest number of species, but the most 
beautiful and rarest examples. 
Seventy to eighty distinct kinds are now only recognised, this 
restricted number including all the known members of the genus, 
and of which estimate more than one half inhabit the shores of 
Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and their adjacent islands; 
but Australia is well called by Angas their metropolis, as many 
of the most handsome and highly esteemed are found on its coasts, 
and New South Wales may claim the honour of being almost the ex¬ 
clusive home 514 of the Yoluta magnifica, one of the largest and most 
richly adorned of the whole group. As far as I know, no species of this 
* Dr Gray in Dieffenbach’s Travels, assigns Now Zealand as the habitat of 
this species, but this assertion ,is incorrect. 
