Its colours are various and very beautifully disposed: the ground or
prevailing colour is a deep or dark brown with a broad stripe of a
yellowish hue across the middle of each wing, forming very nearly a band
of that peculiar kind distinguished among Naturalists by the appellation
of a common band. There is also a large and somewhat quadrangular spot
of the same flavous colour upon the disk within and contiguous to the
band, and beyond, towards the apex, a small sub-angular band composed of
smaller flavous spots. Behind the yellow band, across the disk of the
posterior wings, are a series of blue spots composed of many little
shining points, which in the aggregate form a distinct spot of an ovate
form, most brilliant towards the centre and paler towards the edge. And
finally, there are three distinct sublunate spots of red on each
posterior wing, one at the anal angle, and the other two at the
posterior margin, one of which is situated on each side near the base of
the tail. Beneath, the anterior wings are uniformly dark with a single
pale or whitish marginal spot at the tip; the lower wings of a fuscous
colour with seven ocellar spots of black, the iris of which are rufous.
-----
Footnote 13:
Lot 305, third day, Saturday, May 25th, 1805.
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[Illustration:
_20_
_London. Published as the Act directs, by E.
Donovan, & Mess.^{rs} Simpkin & Marshall, Oct.^r 1, 1822._
]
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ORNITHOLOGY.
PLATE XX.
PIPRA PUNCTATA
DOTTED OR SPECKLED MANAKIN.
PASSERES.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Bill shorter than the head, strong, hard, nearly triangular at the base
and slightly incurvate at the tip: nostrils naked. Feet gressorial: tail
short.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Cinereous brown, beneath yellow: head, wings, and tail black with white
dots: tail coverts red.
PIPRA PUNCTATA: griseo fusca, subtus flava, capite alis caudaque nigris
albo punctatis, tectricibus caudæ rubris.
PIPRA PUNCTATA. Greyish brown, waved with dusky: top of the head and
wings black speckled with white; tail coverts red. SPECKLED
MANAKIN, _Nat. Miscell. 111._
PARDALOTUS (punctatus) _Vieillot. Ornith. Elem. p. 31._
* * * * *
This pretty little species of Manakin is one among the number of those
numerous acquisitions in the science of Natural History, for which the
Naturalist is indebted to the prolific regions of Australasia. The very
close affinity which it bears to the Gmelinian Pipra Nævia, a species
described originally by Buffon under the title of _Fourmilier tacheté de
Cayenne_, may possibly have occasioned some confusion among authors
respecting this individual species, but there are still, if we mistake
not, sufficient indications of the two birds being specifically
distinct. This was the opinion of the late Dr. Shaw: he constituted a
new species of the bird before us under the name of PIPRA PUNCTATA, and
the english trivial of SPECKLED MANAKIN, and we are induced to follow
that example from a persuasion that his conclusion was correct. Pipra
Nævia, to which it is so nearly allied, has the throat and chin black,
and the breast spotted with black: Pipra Punctata, on the contrary, has
the throat and breast yellow, without any black spots. These differences
afford a conspicuous distinction of the two birds, besides which, there
are some others of less consideration that will appear upon an attentive
comparison.
As a new species, it appears, therefore, pretty certain that we have to
acknowledge the late Dr. Shaw as the first author by whom this
interesting bird was introduced to the knowledge of the learned world:
he describes it, as before observed, under the name of Pipra punctata.
M. Vieillot is consequently in an error when he refers to authority of
Dr. Latham for this name. The bird was so designated in the first
instance, in the work entitled the _Naturalist’s Miscellany_, written by
Dr. Shaw; nor was the species mentioned by Dr. Latham either in his
Synopsis or his Index Ornithologicus. In a final or second supplement
published by Dr. Latham long after the Synopsis, we find the bird
mentioned under the name of the _Speckled Manakin_, but only upon the
authority of the Naturalist’s Miscellany of Shaw, and a drawing of the
bird by General Davies, for at that late period even, the bird appears
to be unknown to Dr. Latham, except upon those two authorities. This
observation is the more material since the Ornithologist M. Vieillot in
dividing the Linnæan Genus Pipra into two Genera, Pardalotus and Pipra,
assigns for the type of his genus PARDALOTUS the “_Pipra punctata_” of
Latham, at the same time, as we have already shewn, the works of Dr.
Latham affords us no such name. The present species was described under
the appellation of _Pipra punctata_ only by Dr. Shaw. Dr. Latham does
not adopt this name, he records the species only under the trivial
english name of the Speckled Manakin, which name had also been assigned
before by Dr. Shaw. If, therefore, the name of Pipra punctata had
occurred to M. Vieillot, it must have been in the work of Dr. Shaw, and
not of Dr. Latham. Perhaps Vieillot had inadvertently imagined this
Speckled Manakin to be the same as the Spotted Manakin of Dr. Latham’s
Synopsis. If this be really the source of error, it may be added, that
this latter bird appears to have been described by Dr. Latham upon the
authority only of Planches Enluminées, and is no other than Pipra Nævia
of Gmelin, as Dr. Latham has himself pointed out in his Index
Ornithologicus.
The description of this bird, as it occurs in the first instance, in the
works of Dr. Shaw, is to this effect. PIPRA PUNCTATA (SPECKLED MANAKIN)
_grisea_, _fusco undulata_, _vertice alisque nigris_, _albo punctatis
tectricibus caudæ rubris_. The notice of the species as before-mentioned
in Dr. Latham’s second Supplement is subsequent to this, and appears
only under the trivial name of the Speckled Manakin.
In adverting to the separation of the Pipra genus as it occurs in the
work of M. Vieillot, it will not be amiss to point out precisely those
distinctions, which, according to his mode of classification, constitute
the characters of those two genera into which he has divided them. The
first of these genera denominated PARDALOTUS comprehends those species
of the Pipra genus in which the form of the bill is very short in
proportion to its length, a little robust or stout, the base dilated
upon the edges, entire, conoid, thick at the point, the upper mandible a
little bent, and the lower one convex beneath. Those birds which are
allowed to remain in the Pipra genus have the bill conoid, trigonal at
the base, compressed at the sides near the end, cut off and curved at
the point, the lower mandible turning up at the extremity; and the
exterior toes connected rather beyond the middle. It may be added,
finally, that Cuvier, on the contrary, in his _Règne Animal_, allows the
Manakins (Pipra of Linnæus) to remain united as before. He does not
adopt the genus Pardalotus, and this circumstance is the more worthy of
note since we have seen the species arranged in our Museums with the
synonymous appellation of “PARDALOTUS PUNCTATUS _Cuvier_,” and have
observed it designated as the type of Cuvier’s New Genus Pardalotus.
This interesting little creature being represented in its natural size
in the plate annexed, it will be perceived to be one of the smaller
tribes of the feathered race: we have even few birds in England more
diminutive, for in point of magnitude it does not exceed that of our
common willow-wren, its length being only about four inches. The
elegance of its plumage, is, however, in a peculiar degree attractive,
and more than amply compensates for this inferiority in size. The
general colour above is cinereous brown, varying to a cinereous purple;
the throat and breast a delicate fulvous yellow; the crown of the head
black spotted with white; the wings, except the coverts, which are the
same colour as the back, are black, and the tip of each of these black
feathers are marked with a spot of white. The rump coverts are
testaceous, becoming gradually redder towards the end: the tail itself
is black, having the base of a fine crimson with some intermixture of
yellow; and in general, though not invariably, there is a white dot at
the tip of each of the tail feathers; sometimes it is only the outer
feather on each side the tail that is marked with a white dot. Beneath,
the throat and breast is of a delicate yellow colour; the bill black,
and legs brown.
In the plate that accompanies this description, this elegant little bird
appears perched upon a sprig of the _ovate leaved Goodenia_, GOODENIA
OVATA, a vegetable production of the Australasian regions, that flowered
in the month of July, during the present year, in the Royal Gardens,
Kew.
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[Illustration:
_21_
_London. Published as the Act directs, by E.
Donovan & Mess.^{rs} Simpkin & Marshall, Oct.^r 1, 1822._
]
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CONCHOLOGY.
PLATE XXI.
VOLUTA PYRUM
PEAR VOLUTE.
_Front View._
UNIVALVE.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Spiral; aperture without a beak, and somewhat effuse; pillar twisted or
plaited, generally without lips or perforation.
**** FUSIFORM.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Shell obovate and slightly tailed with striated whorls on the spire: tip
produced and glabrous: pillar with three plaits.
VOLUTA PYRUM: testa obovata subcaudati; spiræ anfractibus striatis;
apice producto glaberrimo, columella triplicata.—_Gmel. Linn.
Syst. Nat. T. 1. p. 6. 3463. 102._—_List. Conch, t. 815. f.
25._—_Bonann. recr et Mus. Kircher. 3. f. 194._—_Knorr. Vergn.
6. f. 39. f. 1._—_Gualt. test. t. 46. f. C._—_Martini. Conch. 3.
t. 95. f. 916. 917._—(B.) _List. Conch. t. 816. f.
26._—_Martini. Conch. 3. t. 95. f. 918. 919._—_Knorr. Vergn. 6.
t. 27. f. 2._—(D.) _Chemn. Conch. 9. t. 104. f. 884. 885._—(8.)
_Chemn. Conch. 9. t. 104. f. 886. 887._
* * * * *
The animal inhabitant of this shell, according to the generical
definition of Linnæus, is a kind of Limax; the Limax is one of the
Mollusca Tribe, or animals furnished with limbs; the mouth is placed
before, it has a lateral perforation, the feelers are four in number,
and the vent common with the lateral pore. This is the Linnæan character
of the animal inhabitant of the Voluta Genus, and consequently of the
species now before us.
It is not to be disputed that the discoveries which have taken place
among the vermes of those testaceous bodies since the time of Linnæus,
have introduced us to a far more extensive acquaintance with the beings
of this nature than Linnæus could have possessed. The term Limax, which
Linnæus applied not only to the animal inhabitants of the Voluta family,
but also to the Buccinum, the Strombus, the Murex, the Trochus, the
Turbo, in short to almost every genus of the Univalves, and some even of
the Bivalves could not fail to excite remark. It could scarcely be
conceived that in the very ample range of the creation which those
genera embraced, such uniformity could prevail, and the subsequent
observations of various Naturalists have tended fully to assure us that
the Linnæan character of the animal inhabitants of the testaceous tribes
was much too vague and comprehensive. There are indeed, it must be
confessed, a considerable number of those testaceous bodies, the animals
of which are still unknown, and may possibly so remain, but forming our
conclusions, from the great multitude that has been recently discovered,
and the number of those which have been examined with anatomical
attention, we may presume, with safety, that the Linnæan Limaces ought
properly to be divided into several distinct genera. How far a
methodical distribution of the shells themselves, founded upon the
zoological distinctions of the animal inhabitants, may be admissible in
our cabinets appears less certain. The greater number of those shells,
of which the animals are totally unknown, present insuperable
objections; and the attention of collectors in the formation of the
Conchological Cabinet, so rarely extend beyond the more obvious
characters which the structure of the shells present, that we can
scarcely deem it practicable.
The animal of the shell before us, Voluta pyrum, has been ascertained
and well described by Lamarck, De Montfort, and other writers; it has
the head armed with two obtuse feelers of a club-like form; the eyes
advanced and placed at the base, at the outerside of those feelers; the
mantle or fleshy covering terminating in an elongation folded into a
kind of tube above the head; the foot, or disk, strong and muscular, and
armed with a small round horny operculum.
According to the Linnæan classification, the shelly covering of this
animal is a Voluta; and so far as the most prominent criterion of the
Voluta genus, the folds or plaits upon the pillar lip be considered,
this character is unequivocal. Linnæus regarding this as one of its most
essential definitions, has overlooked the differences that prevail in
the structure of the spire and beaks, or includes them only as
distinctions of the different families into which his Volutæ are
divided. Later writers differ upon this subject; these differences are
considered by many as generical, and thus the Linnæan Volutæ have become
separated into several distinct genera. In the shell before us, the beak
is lengthened or produced, and canaliculated; and thus constitutes in
the classification of Lamarck, a species of his TURBINELLA; and is the
shell in particular which he adopts as the type of that genus. The
character of that genus, as proposed by this Conchologist, in his work
entitled _Animaux sans vertèbres_, is thus expressed, Turbinelle
(Turbinella) a shell turbinated or subfusiform, canaliculated to the
base, and having upon the column from three to five plaits or folds of a
compressed form and placed transversely. Murex scolymus of Martini,
Voluta ceramica of Lister, and Voluta capitellum of the same author, are
comprehended with the Linnæan Voluta pyrum in this genus Turbinellus.
It has been observed by De Montfort that Lamarck has made a group of
those shells which accord with the above character, and which he himself
adopts with some small variations: according to this writer, the genus
Turbinelle, of which our Voluta Pyrum is considered as the type, has the
shell heavy, univalve, with an obtuse spire ending in a nipple; the
mouth sloping and lengthened; the pillar denticulated with large equal
folds or plaits, the outer lip strait and cut off, and the base
lengthened.
After all the pains, however, which Lamarck and other Continental
Naturalists have taken to establish the genus Turbinella, Cuvier in his
Règne Animal observes that the shells of this genus differ in no other
respect from the Conic Volutes than in the prolongation of their
opening, forming a kind of canal, and adding that it is not easy to
trace the limits between the one and the other.
We have experienced some surprise in observing that while so much
attention has been bestowed by writers upon the generical distinctions
of Voluta Pyrum, the differences that prevail in its presumed varieties
have almost entirely escaped attention. It should be remarked that in
the Gmelinian constitution of this species there are no less than four
distinct varieties, all which, according to Gmelin, and subsequently to
other writers, appertain to the Linnæan species Pyrum. From the
synonymous references which Lamarck has brought together in one view, it
is obvious that his opinion is the same; his TURBINELLA PYRUM, which is
the same as the Linnæan Voluta Pyrum, will be observed to comprehend the
several presumed varieties of the species to be found in the works of
Martini and Chemnitz, and the same is again observable in the works of
Denys de Montfort. There are, however, some Conchologists in England who
do not agree in this particular, for they constitute at least three
distinct species of the presumed varieties of Voluta Pyrum. This
division of the species was first proposed by Dr. Solander, and has been
subsequently adopted in several of our English Cabinets. As the
particulars of this arrangement may not prove unacceptable, we shall
proceed to describe them.
To the _first_ of these new species Dr. Solander retains the Linnæan
name of VOLUTA PYRUM, it is that kind which has the beak elongated, and
is known by the familiar name of the LONG BEAKED TURNIP SHELL. This is
the Voluta rostrata of some Conchologists; Rapum rostratum of the
Colonnian Museum; and inhabits the seas of Tranquebar.
As the preceding shell is distinguished by the name of the Long beaked
Turnip Shell, in allusion to the elongated structure of the beak, there
is another known by the appellation of the High Spired Turnip Shell, in
reference to the greater elevation of its spire; this is a _second_
species of Solander, and is called by him VOLUTA PONDEROSA; in the
Calonnian Museum it stood under the name of Rapum productum. This shell
inhabits the seas of Madagascar, and is the kind which becomes the more
immediate object of our consideration as the subject of our present
plate.
The _third_ kind of Turnip Shell is from the straits of Malacca, a shell
more ponderous than the preceding; of a broader form and having the
spire more depressed. This is the common Heavy Turnip Shell of our
English Cabinet, Voluta gravis of Solander.
These distinctions proposed by the late Dr. Solander are found
conformable, in a particular degree, with the classification observable
in the cabinet of M. de Colonne. The shells of M. de Colonne, it
appears, were thus arranged by the celebrated Conchologist M. Favanne.
They have, nevertheless, we believe, passed unnoticed by any of the
modern writers upon this subject. The distinctions are certainly
obvious, and might probably fully authorize their separation into
species: it must be at least admitted that as varieties of the same
species they are strikingly distinct.
Having so far treated upon the generical distinctions of Voluta Pyrum,
and pointed out the differences that exist among its principal supposed
varieties, we arrive at another point of view in which the history of
this shell becomes no less important, or less worthy of our
consideration: the sacred character which from some superstitious
causes, remote beyond all research of the present race of men, this
shell has acquired in the Mythology of the Indian Nations: in the rites
and worship of the Indian Brahma. Among these people this shell is
called the CHANK, or SACRED CHANK, the emblem of an attribute of the
divine power, and is constantly seen in one of the hands of the Indian
Deity Vishnu, as a type of the renovation of the earth from the waters
of the deluge.—The cause of this catastrophe of the earth, the deluge,
they attribute to the wickedness of mankind in remote ages, which
incensing the divine Brahma, he caused a flood of the waters to overflow
the earth and destroy every vestige of the creation, animate and
inanimate, that existed upon its surface. After awhile the supreme
Brahma disposed to restore creation, commanded Vishnu to deliver the
earth from the flood of waters, and in testimony of its deliverance
Vishnu bears in his hand the Chank Shell, the symbol of its
renovation.[14]
Without proceding at any considerable length into the history of those
mythological persuasions, it may be permitted to observe that as a type
of the divine power in relieving the earth from the flood of waters with
which it was overwhelmed at the time of the deluge, this shell is held
among the Indians of the Brahma persuasion as one of the most sacred
emblems of that figurative divinity; and this religion, it will be
remembered, extends over no small portion of India and China, and even
to part of Russia and Tartary. Vishnu, as one of the three attributes or
triad of Brahma, almost invariably appears with this symbol in his hand.
Whether in their paintings, sculptures, or carvings, or in the sacred
paraphernalia of their temples, the Chank-shell is the customary type of
their deity Vishnu, and sometimes it occurs in the hands of the inferior
deities,[15] to whom Vishnu is imagined to have confided a portion of
his power. If the Chank be the object of their devotion in health, so
also it is the object of their superstitions in sickness and in death.
The medicine administered by the Priest to his patient in the time of
illness, from the spout of one of these shells, is considered of greater
efficacy than if taken from any other drinking vessel; that from the
spout of a reversed shell has a reputation inestimable. These reversed
shells occur so rarely, that if at any time some happy fortunate of the
fishing tribe of Hindoos should be so lucky as to find one, he is indeed
considered as a mortal favoured by their divinity Vishnu; this treasure
of the deep is immediately deposited in one of their pagodas, to the
great honour and happiness of the discoverer. A dose of medicine from
such a shell is deemed infallible, if the malady of the patient be
within the art of medicine to cure; for if this should fail, they rest
persuaded nothing else can save the patient from the death awaiting him.
As these reversed shells are of very rare occurrence, the price they
bear is of course of considerable. Very few of the Pagodas possess such
an inestimable treasure as a _Chank reversed_, they will command a price
in Asia surpassing infinitely any idea that might probably be formed
upon the subject. Four or five hundred dollars have been given in China,
among the worshippers of Brahma, for a shell of this kind. In India they
have been known to produce from one hundred to two hundred rupees,
sometimes, three, four, or five hundred rupees, or perhaps a larger sum.
The shells of this kind, which are purchased from the natives and
brought to Europe, it may be imagined, for this reason, can have been
obtained only at a considerable cost. It was principally through the
unrivalled liberality of the Conchologists of the low countries, about
the beginning of the last century, that the cabinets of Europe became
possessed of these rarities, and they still remain extremely scarce.
Only two examples of those reversed shells have occurred to our
observation: both were of that kind in which the spire is elongated; the
high spired Turnip Shell of the English cabinets. One of these reversed
shells we saw in the year 1797, in the celebrated collection of Mon de
Calonne, ci-devant Minister of France, and which passed, at a
considerable price, into the collection of the Earl of Tankerville. The
other occurred in the late Leverian Museum, which was distributed by
public auction, in the year 1806. This last-mentioned shell was in a
less perfect condition than might be wished; it was worn and mutilated,
and for this reason did not obtain by any means such a price as was
expected from its rarity: it produced only _seven guineas_, a sum
considered much beneath its real value, even in its injured state.[16]
In the month of April, in the year 1815, the same shell appeared in the
sale of certain effects, the property of the Duke de Bourbon, at his
residence in Great Ormond Street, Portman Square, where it was sold, we
believe, at an advanced price. It is the figure of this last-mentioned
shell that appears in the present plate. We have delineated the specimen
with all faults for the sake of greater accuracy, and from a persuasion
that the Naturalist would prefer a correct representation from an
undoubted original, to any figure in which its actual defects might have
been amended by the pencil of the artist. The shell is depicted in its
natural size, and it will hence appear, is little inferior in point of
magnitude to the generality of those shells of the same species which
are not of the reversed kind. The species is sometimes known to grow to
the length of seven or eight inches, but such examples are not common.
Of the reversed kinds the Leverian specimen, as it has been emphatically
denominated, is probably one of the largest known.