Part 2
The Science of Conchology, like that of all other branches of nature, has undergone its mutations at various periods. Generally, it has held a rank of some eminence, a circumstance attributable no doubt to the peculiar beauty of this interesting tribe. In speaking of the latter times, the period of the last and preceding centuries, it would be difficult to determine in which country of civilized Europe the science of Conchology has been most esteemed; at one time, the virtuosi of Holland, at another of France, and latterly of Britain, have endeavoured to produce the most extensive and costly cabinets of Conchology, and each in consequence may perhaps have excelled alternately; nor were other countries of Europe in this respect less emulous, or materially deficient in the number and excellence of their collections in this department of nature, during the same periods.
We have been unavoidably led into this train of digression and remark from a due consideration of the very interesting history connected with the shells which form the subject of the annexed Plate, the particulars of which, it is presumed, will be found to justify the general tendency of these observations, and these remarks may be considered also as a prelude to the introduction of many others among the number of those rarities which it is within our contemplation to produce progressively in the course of the present work; shells, to which the prevalence of general taste has assigned a value and importance scarcely less considerable than the nonpareil cones, or the eminently celebrated cedo nulli.
The first shell in the plate before us that invites attention from its magnitude is that superb cone delineated at figure I. This shell, which once held a distinguished place in the Leverian Museum, is two inches and six-eighths in length, its greatest breadth one inch and three-eighths. The general colour pale yellowish, with two bands of chesnut, marked with irregular arrow-headed spots of white, and an intermediate narrow band composed of white spots of the same form, each connected by means of an intervening dot of chesnut, which, together, form a catenated band of peculiar elegance. When very closely examined with the aid of a magnifier, the whole surface of the shell appears finely reticulated with yellow.
This shell was sold in one of the latter day’s sale of the Leverian Museum for the sum of five guineas and a half.
FIGURE II.
CONUS AMMIRALIS var AMBOINENSIS β.
SIX-BANDED AMBOYNA HIGH-SPIRED ADMIRAL SHELL.
Spire high and tapering; shell subpyriform; smooth, pale yellowish, sprinkled with fulvous; body-wreath with six bands, the three uppermost linear, and composed of alternate white and chesnut-coloured dots, the three lower of two broad castaneous bands, marked with subsaggitate oval spots, and an intermediate narrow belt of alternate brown and white dots.
* * * * *
This shell, like the former, (fig. I) constituted part of the Leverian collection of exotic shells. Its length is an inch and half, its greatest breadth exceeding five-eighths of an inch.
Notwithstanding the inferiority of its size, this very elegant and curious shell is not less interesting than the preceding. The general tints in both are nearly the same, but in the present shell are rather deeper, the dots of fulvous brighter and more thickly sprinkled, and the bands more numerous. Like the former shell it has two broad bands of brown, checquered with subovate spots of white, and an intermediate dotted line, but these are placed rather nearer towards the narrower end of the shell, and the intervening space between the spire and the larger band, encompassed or girt round with two other linear bands, composed of white and brown dots, besides another still more conspicuous, and composed of larger spots along the base or body-wreath, contiguous to the spire or turban.
This little shell may be considered as affording an excellent type of one of the rarer kinds of Conus Ammiralis, the variety denominated the Six-banded high-spired Admiral Cone. During a period of some years that have now elapsed since the dispersion of that collection, no other example of this variety has occurred to our observation more perfect and characteristic in all its markings.
FIGURE III.
CONUS AMMIRALIS var CEDO NULLI α.
OLIVE-BANDED NONPAREIL CONE.
Spire high and tapering; marbled white, fulvous, and dusky; body-wreath with three subolivaceous bands, the broadest towards the spire, with four belts of whitish dots; the two others towards the narrow end each with a single row of dots.
* * * * *
If in the preceding instances we have produced some novelties worthy of particular attention, the present shell, in point of value as well as beauty, must also lay a distinguished claim to our consideration. This is one of those rare varieties of Conus Ammiralis denominated the CEDO NULLI, or CEDO NULLI _pretiossissimus_, in allusion to the incomparable value affixed to the varieties of this peculiar species. The importance attached to the shells of this kind may indeed be best conceived by stating that some of its varieties have been valued at twenty, fifty, and one hundred guineas; one, in almost every respect resembling that delineated at figure 4, the celebrated Cedo Nulli of Lyonet’s cabinet, was valued by Lyonet himself, about the year 1732, at three hundred guineas; and either this shell, or another very similar to it, actually realized a sum of 1200 florins.
As the shells of this kind may very justly be presumed to be of the first rarity, every trait of information that may appear calculated to elucidate their history, it is presumed, will not only be permitted but be deemed acceptable, and under this impression the ensuing observations are submitted.
Much about the æra of the first explosion of the French Revolution of 1789, and within the space of a few years after, it is perfectly well known that many of the choicest cabinets and collections of rarities that had before been the pride of France and Holland were consigned to this country for the sake of safety, and being in some instances afterwards dispersed, had tended, in no small degree, to enrich the cabinets of our own country. It was at this period that many very rare shells occurred to our observation which have since disappeared, and among others, several of those varieties of Cedo nulli which had been before held in other parts of Europe in considerable estimation. In the year 1797 we saw no less than five specimens of this rare shell, all varying a little from each other, in the cabinet of the French Minister of State, M. de Calonne; in one, the colour was pale, in another deeper, one was lineated, and another distinguished by having three distinct bands.
At the dispersion of the Calonnian Museum, which took place by public sale rather more than twenty years ago, the series of these valuable shells passed into the fine collection of the present Earl Tankerville, a collection his lordship was then forming for the pleasure of an amiable and beloved daughter since deceased, and these shells are still considered among the more choice rarities of that valuable cabinet.
The shell, however, more immediately under our consideration, the variety, delineated at figure 3, is from another source; it was among the spoils of rarities sent over to this country from Holland, at the time of the insurrection connected with the first inroads of the French into that country. The shell passed into the hands of a merchant of curiosities in London, and being afterwards sold, its destination is uncertain; the price affixed was twenty guineas.
This shell corresponded very nearly with the variety denominated Seba’s Cedo nulli, having once formed a part of the museum of the celebrated Seba, but it could not be the same, because the entire collection of Seba, which at the period of the French invasion constituted part of the Royal Museum of the Stadtholder, was carried into France and its contents distributed among the other objects of natural history in the French Museum[2]. The description which Favanne has left us of the CEDO NULLI DE SEBA is in the following words, and will be found on a near comparison to accord pretty accurately with our present shell:—“_Le Cedo nulli_ de Seba, à large bande citron foncé, chargée de quatre cordelettes de grains inégaux, blancs, bleus, rouges et orangés. Le reste de sa robe est fascié et marbré d’orangé-brun, de jaune, de rouge et bleu-pâle sur un fond blanc avec deux bandes grenues vers le bas.”
FAVANNE, t. ii. p. 422.
FIGURE IV.
CONUS AMMIRALIS var CEDO NULLI β.
FULVOUS NONPAREIL CONE.
Spire high and tapering, fulvous reddish and orange, varied and marbled with white; two orange bands, each with four belts of white dots, and a single series near the tip.
* * * * *
The shell from which this drawing is taken fell also into the possession of the same individual as the last, and much about same period. This rarity was disposed of, as I have been informed, at a price exceeding that of the former, and passed shortly after, I believe, into the Imperial cabinet, at Vienna, or otherwise into one of the continental cabinets in the north of Europe, a circumstance we have not, at this distant period, any means whatever of determining.
The accordance between this shell and the celebrated Cedo nulli of Lyonet’s cabinet, which, as before intimated, was estimated at the value of three hundred guineas, will not escape the remark those who are acquainted with the description of Lyonet’s shell. According to Favanne there were two or more varieties of the Cedo nulli, in his time, in France, that bore a very near resemblance to the shell of Lyonet; he speaks of one in the cabinet of Madame La Presidente de Bandeville, which differed in its marbling of white: in being larger and more prolonged upon the top of the first whorl, ather larger, and interrupted with veins of orange, and the last of the two belts of white spots which follows this zone near the bottom of the first whorl, composed of rather larger spots; with these exceptions the two shells were precisely the same.
The Cedo nulli of Lyonet is described as being of a yellowish colour, divided into bands, the lower one and that in the middle marbled with white, the other two marked, the one with four little belts with white dots, the second with only three[3].
I ought not to close these remarks without observing, that these shells vary so considerably that no two specimens have yet occurred that agree precisely with each other. Some approach also, but are clouded instead of banded; these are the French Cedo nulli graphique, Conus mappa of Solander, and being held in less esteem from having their colours disposed in clouds instead of bands, have obtained the name of the false Cedo nulli. The transitions of these shells, it must be confessed are so various as to render it extremely difficult, if not unsafe, to determine where one species ends and another commences, the difference in the colours affords no sufficient data, neither is the form of the shell, nor the height of the spire so uniformly certain as to constitute a precise criterion.
Linnæus, in his description of the conchological cabinet of her majesty _Ludovica Ulrica_, the Queen of Sweden*, speaks of three different varieties of Conus Ammiralis α _Ammiralis summus_, β _Ammiralis ordinarius_, γ _Ammiralis occidentalis_, and these are again recited in his Systema Natura. But it will be seen from the last edition of that work, by Professor Gmelin, that the varieties discovered subsequently to the age of that inestimable naturalist are very considerable, amounting to no less than thirty different kinds, and these do not include the whole at present known. Gmelin, it should be added, admits only two or three kinds as the true CEDO NULLI, which he characterizes essentially as being encompassed with dotted articulated belts, Cedo nulli cingulis punctato-articulatis; one he describes as being yellow, painted with red, and marked with eleven distinct belts of milk white; another, orange with crouded elevated interrupted chesnut lines.
These shells inhabit chiefly the South American Seas; the true Cedo nulli, as it is called, has been found at Grenada. Some of the varieties of Conus Ammiralis, are not very uncommon, and are in infinitely less esteem than others; for, as it has already appeared, it is in proportion to their rarity in addition to some peculiarity in the colours and markings, and most especially in their disposition into the form of bands, that taste and fancy has affixed a value so considerable as that which these shells are sometimes known to bear.
Footnote 1:
(Adamas.) “Proximum apud nos Indicis Arabicisque margaritis pretium est, de quibus in nono diximus volumine inter res marinas.” _Plin. Hist. Nat. lib 37. cap. 4._
Footnote 2:
Vide _Annales du Museum National_. _An._ xi. (1802) _Premier Cahier_.
Footnote 3:
Le Cedo Nulli à bandes, ou dont la robe jaunâtre se partage en quatre bandes, l’inférieure et celle du milieu sont comparties de marbrures blanches, les deux autres sont remplies, l’une de quatre cordelettes à point blancs, la seconde de trois seulement. _Tom._ 1, p. 442.
ORNITHOLOGY.
PLATE II.
TROGON VIRIDIS.
YELLOW-BELLIED GREEN TROGON,
OR
CURUCUI.
ORDER PICÆ.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Bill shorter than the head, sharp edged, hooked margin of the mandibles serrated: feet scansorial or formed for climbing.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER AND SYNONYMS.
Green gold, beneath luteous; chin black; on the breast a green gold band.
TROGON VIRIDIS: viridi-aureus, subtus luteis, gula nigra, fascia pectorali viridi-aurea. _Gmel. Linn. Syst. Nat. 2. 404. n. 3._
TROGON VIRIDIS, _Linn. Syst. Nat. edit. 12. 1. p. 167. 3._
Trogon Cayanensis viridis. _Briss. av. 4. p. 168. n. 2 t. 17._
Couroucou à ventre jaune. _Buff. Ois. 6. p. 291. Pl. Enl. 195._
TROGON VIRIDIS: viridi-aureus subtus luteis, gula nigra, retricibus utrinque tribus extimis oblique et dentatim albis. _Lath. Ind. Orn. t. 1. p. 199. 2._
Yellow-bellied Curucui. _Lath. Gen. Syn. 2. p. 488. 2._
* * * * *
This curious and very elegant bird is about twelve inches in length; the bill an inch long and of a pale cinereous or ashen hue, and, like most other species of this remarkable genus, serrated along the margin. The legs are feathered to the toes, and with the toes and claws are of a pale brown.
The colour of the head and neck of this species is black, very richly glossed with blue, which appears, in different directions of the light, highly splendid upon its surface. Upon the crown of the head the blue verges into violet and purple, and in descending towards the neck becomes changeable into a fine green, glossed with gold; these brilliant hues appear also on the sides of the neck, and passing round as a kind of pectorial band forms in particular a rich zone of golden green upon the breast.
The pale ashen hue of the bill is singularly contrasted with the deep black and violet of the head and neck, and the sudden transition of the colours of the body is no less remarkable, the plumage in this part becoming abruptly of a fine yellow from the breast down to the thighs; these latter are black, but the vent feathers beyond are of a fine yellow, like the colour of the abdomen. The upper parts of the body are green glossed with yellowish and partaking of a golden lustre. The upper wing coverts and scapulars are dark fuscous, mottled with greyish; the quill feathers dark brown, quills from the base to the middle white. The tail is cuneated or wedge-formed, the middle feathers being longer than the outer ones. These feathers are most singularly contrasted with the rest, being of a fine dark green, glossed with gold, and at the tip black, while the three outer feathers on the contrary are white, and from the base downwards nearly to the tip very elegantly marked with oblique indented bars of black, leaving the tip of each feather immaculate; the inner one of these three exterior feathers are the same length as the dark ones, but the next outer feather is shorter, and the extreme exterior feather on each side shorter than the latter.
There is a variety of this bird in which the belly, instead of being yellow, is white; the whole bird is a trifle smaller than the example now before us, and may possibly prove hereafter to be the same species, in a less mature state of plumage. Buffon calls it _Le Couroucou verd_.
All the birds of this tribe at present known are inhabitants of the warmer climates of South America and India. Our present subject is a native of Cayenne, where it lives in damp and retired woods, building upon the lower branches of trees and feeding chiefly upon insects, with which the trees and herbage in those countries abound.
This truly interesting and very beautiful species is already known in our language by the epithet of the yellow-bellied Trogon or Curucui. There is, however, another bird of the same genus, which has the belly yellow, as in the present bird; we allude to the Rufous Curucui, the better therefore to define our species we have denominated it the yellow-bellied Green Trogon, or Curucui, as the least attention to the difference in the general colour of the plumage will thus enable the most cursory observer to discriminate the two species with facility and accuracy.
ENTOMOLOGY.
PLATE III.
FIGURE I, I.
PAPILIO CODOMANNUS.
CODOMANNUS BUTTERFLY.
ORDER LEPIDOPTERA.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Antennæ thicker towards the tip and generally terminating in a knob: wings erect when at rest. Fly by day.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER AND SYNONYMS.
Wings entire, deep black with sanguineous bands: posterior ones beneath with annular yellow lines and dots of blue.
* DANAI FESTIVI _Fabr._
PAPILIO CODOMANNUS: alis integerrimis atris sanguineo fasciatis: posticis subtus lineis annularibus flavis punctisque cœruleis. _Fabr. Spec. Ins. t. 2. p. 57. n. 253._—_Mant. Ins. 2. p. 28. n. 292._—_Ent. Syst. t. 3. p. 1. p. 53. n. 165._
Alae anticæ supra atrae basi fasciaque, quæ margines haud attingit, sanguineis. Punctum fulvum transversum versus apicem et margo apicis albo punctatus. Subtus fere concolores fascia tantum flava et striga cœrulea apicis. Posticæ supra atræ vitta abbreviata fulva, subtus atræ lineis annularibus flavis punctisque cœrulescentibus. Pectus albo punctatum. _Fabr._
PAPILIO CODOMANNUS alis integerrimis atris sanguineo fasciatis: posterioribus subtus lineis annularibus flavis punctisque cœruleis. _Gmel. Linn. Syst. t. 1. p. 5. 2280. n. 473._
* * * * *
The delineations of the very beautiful butterfly that appears in the annexed plate, are copied from a specimen in the cabinet of the late worthy president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks.
Fabricius had previously observed and made known throughout Europe the description of this species with many others of the Banksian Cabinet, but the figures of it now submitted to the amateur are the first that have appeared.—When we consider the celebrity which the entomological writings of Fabricius have acquired it may be satisfactory to learn that the delineation now before us is copied from the individual specimen which Fabricius had described, and that no other figure of this very interesting Papilio is extant.
The upper surface of the butterfly is of a dark brown colour of peculiar richness, crossed by stripes of deep scarlet. The insect with expanded wings displayed in a flying position in the lower part of the plate exemplifies this aspect of the upper surface. The lower surface is much more beautiful; the marks and colours on the anterior pair possess nearly the same character as those of the upper surface; the posterior pair are very different, being marked with large annular bands of bright yellow upon a fuscous ground, and inclosing a number of distinct spots of cœrulean blue, which in beauty emulate the brilliancy of the finest ultra marine: three of these blue spots are placed in the dark ground upon the disk, the remainder are disposed in a semi-circle upon a band of black towards the posterior extremity of the wings. This appearance is best perceived when the insect appears in a resting position as it is seen on one of the branches of the mimosa in the upper part of the plate.
This insect is a native of Brazil.
FIGURE II.
PAPILIO PYRAMUS. PYRAMUS BUTTERFLY.
ORDER LEPIDOPTERA.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Antennæ thicker towards the tip, and generally terminating in a knob; wings erect when at rest. Fly by day.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER AND SYNONYMS.
Wings entire, fuscous glossed with blue, and marked with a fulvous spot; lower wings beneath grey.
PLEBEJI RURALES, _Fabr. Sp. Ins._
HESPERIA RURALES, _Fabr. Ent. Syst._
PAPILIO PYRAMUS: alis integerrimis fuscis cœruleo micantibus, macula fulva, posticis subtus griseis. _Fabr. Spec. Ins. 2 p. 130. n. 590._—_Mant. Ins. 2 p. 83. n. 755._
HESPERIA PYRAMUS: _Fabr. Ent. Syst. t. 3. p. 1. 323. n. 223._ Alæ omnes fuscæ, cœruleo micantibus: macula magna, in medio fulva. Anticæ, subtus concolores, posticæ griseæ sive cinereo fuscoque variæ. _Fabr._
* * * * *
Fabricius describes Papilio Pyramus as a new species of the genus from the drawings of the late Mr. Jones, of Chelsea, a gentleman of fortune who had long devoted his attention to this peculiar tribe of insects, the Papiliones, and whose labours tended in a very eminent degree to aid those of Fabricius. In return for this assistance, Fabricius affixed to each of those insects the names under which they were destined afterwards to appear before the world, a circumstance that may explain sufficiently the frequent references of the Fabrician writings to those drawings, first in his _Species Insectorum_, and subsequently in his _Entomologia Systematica_. It may be further added, that the whole of these drawings, together with the manuscripts in the hand-writing of Fabricius were long in our own possession, during the life-time of the very amiable proprietor, Mr. Jones, for the very liberal purpose of copying and making known to the public whatever might appear likely to us to promote the interest and advantage of the Science of Nature; and that the insect now before us is one of those very rare species copied for this purpose.
The specimen from which the painting of Mr. Jones was taken formed originally part of the collection of the lamented Mr. Yates, the ingenious author of an English translation of the Linnæan Fundamenta Entomologia, that appeared about forty years ago, and who lost his life by bathing in the river some short time afterwards.