an arrangement of Conchology, so perfect as to deserve that epithet, it
would be a task of some difficulty to fix the precise station of the
Wentletrap; for in the order of nature it presents anomalies which
cannot easily be reconciled, and few authors are agreed upon this
subject even in the artificial arrangements which they have been induced
to adopt. Thus Rumpfius makes it a _Buccinum_, Davila a _Tuyau_,
Argenville places it as a _Terebra_ (vis) and De Montfort Scalarus. In
the Encyclopædia it is denominated Scalaria Pretiosa, and this name
Lamarck retains.
The name of Wentletrap, by which this shell is now so well known, is
derived from the Dutch Language, and signifies according to the
technical phraseology of the Dutch architects in building, a winding
stair case, or flight of stairs turning spirally round a central column,
into which one end of every step is mortised as they ascend from the
base upwards. The term Wentletrap, Wenteltrap, or as the Dutch sometimes
call it, Wendeltrap,[19] is the name given by Rumpfius the Hollander to
this shell, as a synonymous name with his latin term _Scalare_. It is an
allusion, somewhat fanciful we must allow, to the disposition of the
costal ridges upon this shell, and which when viewed laterally as they
traverse or pass over the upper convexity of the whorls on each side,
have the appearance of a flight of steps turning spirally round the body
of the shell, just as a winding staircase would be carried spirally
round a cone or sub-cylindrical body. The singularity of this species
(for it is not a peculiarity or character even of the new genus Scalaria
as established by Lamarck and Cuvier) consists in having the whole whorl
of the shell, from the mouth to the summit, entirely unconnected, while
in spiral shells the suture of the whorls is united throughout. The tube
is perfectly detached from the mouth to the apex, and the whorls linked
together only by means of the longitudinal ribs which traverse the tube
at regular intervals, so that the only connexion of the whorls is at the
junction of those ribs, which touching each other unite at that part
which in regular spiral shells that have the whorls united, would be
denominated the suture of the whorls.
Considering the very zealous propensity of some French Naturalists of
the present day, and of their admirers in England, to create new genera
upon every slight occasion, it becomes a matter of some astonishment
that a character so very obvious as the disjunction of the tube from the
aperture to the very summit should not have laid the foundation of a new
genus, for the reception of this shell. Lamarck, however, places it at
the head of his _Scalaires_, and one of the next species in succession
is his _Scalaria Communis_, a shell perfectly well known by every
Naturalist throughout Europe for nearly a century past under the name of
_Turbo Clathratus_.[20] Nor is Lamarck singular in this very anomalous
consolidation of shells so distant in this respect from each other; for
Cuvier in his _Règne Animal_, after describing our present shell, the
Linnæan Turbo Scalaris, as one of his _Scalaires_, and informing us it
is distinguished by the whorls not touching each other, adds
particularly that there is another species which has not that
peculiarity, and that is the _Turbo Clathratus_. Nothing, however, can
be more certain than that from this very circumstance these two shells
are generically distinct from each other; Clathratus may be retained
with the Linnæan Turbines, but Scalaris has nearly, if not entirely as
much claim to the _Serpula_[21] as _Turbo_ genus; which cannot be said
of T. Clathratus. We shall for this reason allow the Wentletrap to
remain where Linnæus has placed it, namely, among the Turbines; not
perhaps without some hesitation, but if we did remove it, we should
certainly prefer the institution of new genus for its reception, instead
of wandering from one anomaly to another, as we must perceive would be
the case in the present instance by following the example of Lamarck and
Cuvier.
It may be lastly observed that the progressive growth of this
extraordinary rarity may be determined by the greater number of the
longitudinal ribs that pass over and surround the tube of the whorls,
for at each increase the animal forms a new mouth to its shell: the new
mouth as it is protruded and formed, appears like the former ones,
entirely surrounded by a rim or ring, and it is these rings of the
mouths as they are formed in succession, that constitute the ribs which
appear to traverse the shell as it is increased in length, and
consequently in the number of its rings. Shells of a large size exhibit
sometimes as many as fifty or sixty of such rings surrounding the tube
or spire at regular intervals.
-----
Footnote 19:
_Wenteltrap_, _Wendeltrap_, Rondom gaande trap, met een spil daar al
de trappen in schroeven. _Marin._
Footnote 20:
_Vide_ Donovan’s British Shells, Vol. I. plate 28.
Footnote 21:
_Serpula_ Linn. _Vermicularus De Montf. Vermet_ Adanson. The animal of
the Serpulæ, it may be added further, does not differ, according to
Cuvier, from those of the Linnæan Genus Turbo, and consequently not
from Scalaria of Lamarck and Cuvier, as must be concluded from their
admission of Turbo Clathratus among the number of its species, in an
arrangement founded on the organization of the animal, as well as its
testaceous habitation. Cuvier himself observes that the animal of the
Vermet, and also the opening (of the shell) resemble those of the
Turbo, but that the whorls do not touch, and are in part irregularly
curved like the tubes of the Serpulas.—_Règne Animal T. 2. 419._ And
his classification further shews the analogy of these tribes of
shells, since the animal of the Linnæan _Turbo_, the _Vermets_ of
Adanson, and _Scalaria_ of Lamarck, are all of the same family, the
_Gastéropodas Pectinibranches_ of Cuvier.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
_27_
_London. Published as the Act directs by E.
Donovan & Mess.^{rs} Simpkin & Marshall Dec.^r 1 1822._
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ENTOMOLOGY.
PLATE XXVII.
FIGURE I.
PAPILIO ZACYNTHUS
ZACYNTHUS’S BUTTERFLY.
ORDER
LEPIDOPTERA.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Antennæ thicker towards the tip, and generally terminating in a knob:
wings erect when at rest. Fly by day.
* EQUITES TROJANI.—_Fabr._
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Wings indented, black: a spot on the anterior pair green and white: and
one on the posterior wings palmated and sanguineous.
PAPILIO ZACYNTHUS: alis dentatis nigris: anticis macula viridi alba,
posticis palmata sanguinea.—_Fabr. Ent. Syst. T. 3. p. 1. p. 15.
n. 46._
PAPILIO ZACYNTHUS.—_Jon. fig. pict. 1 tab. 22._
* * * * *
It cannot fail to prove satisfactory to the Naturalist to be informed
that we have the same sanction for presenting the annexed figure as that
of the true PAPILIO ZACYNTHUS of _Fabricius_, as that to which we have
several times adverted upon other similar occasions in the progress of
the present publication, namely the hand-writing of that celebrated
Entomologist, inscribed upon the original drawings of Mr. Jones. This is
indeed a circumstance to which we cannot advert too frequently in our
references, since it is upon that authority alone that we are now
enabled to determine with any degree of precision nearly the whole of
those new species of Papiliones, the existence of which has been made
known throughout Europe by the classic writings of that author, but of
which no other evidence is now extant; for most of the collections
existing at the time Fabricius was in England, and to which he refers,
have been long since dispersed, and but for the care of the late Mr.
Jones of Chelsea, who had preserved these invaluable authorities to the
scientific world, the labours even of Fabricius in this department had
become comparatively of very little value.
Papilio Zacynthus is a species of the first family of Papiliones, the
Equites Trojani. It has much the habit of Papilio Æneas, a well known
insect, described by Linnæus, and which is figured by Roesel, Seba,
Jablonsky, and some other authors; but upon an attentive comparison it
will be found to be very different. Its great similarity renders it of
more importance to point out precisely the difference that prevails
between them, and this the present figure it is presumed will render
distinctly obvious.
In the species P. Zacanthus the wings are black: in the middle of the
first pair is a large spot composed of two distinct colours, the
anterior part being white, the posterior green, but on the underside the
spot appears entirely white. Papilio Æneas has also a spot of green upon
the anterior wings but without any portion of white. Papilio Æneas is a
native of India, Papilio Zacynthus is from the Brasils.
FIGURE II.
PAPILIO DIMAS
DIMAS’S BUTTERFLY.
ORDER
LEPIDOPTERA.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Antennæ thicker towards the tip, and generally terminating in a knob:
wings erect when at rest. Fly by day.
* EQUITES TROJANI.—_Fabr._
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Wings indented: above and beneath black: on the anterior pair, a white
spot divided by veins: on the posterior pair a palmate sanguineous spot.
PAPILIO DIMAS: alis dentatis concoloribus nigris anticis macula alba
venis divisa, posticis sanguinea palmata.—_Fabr. Ent. Syst. T.
3. p. 1. p. 16. n. 47._
PAPILIO DIMAS—_Jon. fig. pict. 1. tab. 23._
* * * * *
This, like the preceding, is a species we have been enabled to determine
from the Fabrician MS. and the drawings of Mr. Jones. Fabricius, it
appears, was not entirely decided in his mind whether the two Papiliones
figured by Cramer, plate 29 fig. E, under the name of Hyppason, and that
in the same plate, fig. F, named Euristeus, ought in reality to be
considered as appertaining to this species; and preferring the name of
Dimas which had been previously given to it by Mr. Jones, he has
described it under that name, allowing the references to Cramer, above
quoted, to remain as synonyms. The Naturalist may rely with implicit
confidence upon its being the Papilio Dimas of Jones and Fabricius.
This is rather larger than the former, the general colour black: on the
anterior wings, in the middle, is a large white spot, so situated upon
the junction of the ribs that they pass distinctly through it and give
the appearance of a spot cleft at the sutures. The sanguineous palmate
spot on the posterior wings is six cleft: and besides this there is a
small spot of red upon the scollops, between the dentations at the
margin of the posterior wings. The colours and spots appear beneath as
above, but only paler.
Papilio Dimas is a native of Brazil, and bears a near affinity to
Papilio Anchises.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
_28_
_London. Published by E. Donovan, & Mess.^{rs}
Simpkin & Marshall, Jan. 1, 1823._
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCHOLOGY.
PLATE XXVIII.
MALLEUS MACULATUS
SPOTTED HAMMER SHELL, OR HOUND’S TONGUE.
* BIVALVE.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Shell subquivalve, rough, deformed, generally lengthened and lobed or
hammer-shaped: beaks small and divergent. Hinge without teeth, a
lengthened conic hollow situated under the beaks and traversing
obliquely the facet of the ligament. A lateral slope or groove at the
side of the ligament for the passage of the byssus or beard with which
the animal is furnished.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Shell curved, with a single somewhat straight abbreviated lobe at the
base: reddish yellow, clouded, spotted and dotted with fuscous.
MALLEUS MACULATUS: testa arcuata, lobo basis unico sub-recta abbreviato
flavo-rufescente fusco nebulosa maculata punctisque.
* * * * *
The singular object now before us, a shell no less remarkable for the
peculiarity of its form than rarity of occurrence, is one of the most
choice productions of the seas surrounding the Friendly Isles. The
discovery of this shell, like that of many others, resulted from the
assiduities of that eminent Naturalist and promoter of scientific
knowledge, the late Sir Joseph Banks, and of Dr. Solander, who
accompanied him in that memorable voyage of Captain Cook to the Southern
Hemisphere, in which the Friendly Isles were discovered. The fine
example of this shell, in particular, from which the drawing in our
plate is taken, it may be also added, was one of those which were
brought to this country by Captain Cook upon the return of the
expedition, and which being shortly after presented to Sir Ashton Lever,
remained in the Museum of that distinguished amateur from that period to
the time of its dissolution in the year 1806.
When we consider the very remote situation of those islands, so distant
from the usual track of all navigators, we cannot be surprised,
admitting the species to be local in those seas, to find it has remained
a very rare shell from the period of its discovery to the present time.
In the course of many years only a few specimens have occurred to our
observation, and while it has remained scarce with us, it appears to
have been still more uncommon in the continental cabinets: very few of
which, if we are informed correctly, were lately in possession of it.
The first difficulty that arises in the mind of the naturalist upon the
inspection of this shell results from the ambiguity of its generical
peculiarities: we pause to consider where it should be placed. Linnæus,
to whom, as it will be observed, the present shell was totally unknown,
arranged the Hammer Shell, its nearest approximation, among the Ostreæ.
The Hammer Shell, or as it is more usually denominated the Hammer Oyster
Shell, had been discovered before the time of Linnæus; it had appeared
in the work of Rumpfius, Seba, Gualtieri and Argenville, and the shell
had been examined and described by him in the Museum of Ulrica, Queen of
Sweden, under the name of Ostrea Malleus. That the hinge accords in some
degree with that of the Ostreæ generally must be admitted, at the same
time that it possesses other characters less easily reconciled to that
genus, unless we embrace the Linnæan genus in all its latitude, and to
this the conchologist of the present day cannot accede, at least without
some little difficulties.
The conformation of this shell is very striking, and yet we perceive
that its essential characteristics are less definitive than could be
wished; there are several approximations in the general figure to be
found among shells which nevertheless possess characters generically
distinct. For many years this shell was known in this country under the
name of “_Margaritifera maculata_,” and the trivial English appellation
of the “_Spotted Hound’s Tongue_:” it appeared under those names in the
Conchological Museum of M. de Calonne, while it remained in England, and
in the catalogue of that museum, which is still extant, it will be found
under those names. The epithet of Hound’s Tongue is not inaptly applied
to this shell, in allusion to the elongated form. The term Margaritifera
does not refer to the form, but to the pearly gloss that appears upon
the surface of the dark blue space lying within the shell, immediately
below the hinge, and extending from thence about one fourth part of its
whole length. This is the region in which the animal is attached by its
ligament to the valves of the shell; besides which, a gloss of pearly
hue is observed to pervade the whole of the inner surface, only that it
is most conspicuous in the darker disk of the shell. As a secondary
character this pearliness is very remarkable in the shell before us, at
the same time that as a generical denomination the term Margaritifera
assigned to it from this circumstance alone is liable to objection;
because, the same pearliness prevails in many shells which have no
relation whatever with the present, either in the form or structure of
the hinge, and it is to these we must resort for its true essential
character.
Lamarck constitutes many genera of the shells included in the Ostrea
genus of Linnæus. His Malléacées comprehend five genera, Crenatula,
Perna, Malleus, Avicula, and Meleagrina, all which are allied more or
less remotely to the shell before us. To that particular family which is
known among collectors by the designation of Hammer Oysters, he gives
the name of Malleus, in the French Marteau, both alike implying the
hammer like form of the species Malleus, which Lamarck assumes as the
type of this genus. But even there after all the renovation that has
been attempted, the result is not satisfactory, because this figure is
by no means constant, even in the few species included by its author in
that genus; it contains but six species, and these are entirely at
variance with each other. Thus for example, in Malleus Vulgaris, the
common Hammer Shell, we have a species with three lobes, a lateral one
of considerable size being advanced on each side the beaks: and another
shell of the same species with only short lateral lobes instead of large
ones. Admitting the hammer form to be still preserved in these, in the
next species, Malleus Normalis, instead of two lobes, the hammer head,
if it may be so expressed, has but a single lobe: in Malleus Anatinus
there is only one lobe, and that very small; and in Malleus Vulsellatus,
although characterised as “_lobo oblique porrecto_,” the appearance of
the shell implies rather the total absence of any lobe, for the lobe, if
so it may be termed, is so indefinite, that it cannot be referred
without violence to the genus Marteau, while we consider its hammer like
form as a leading character of the genus. With exception to this
inconstant character which may be qualified with the expression
“deformed and generally hammer shaped,” we have no objection to the
Malleus genus, because the byssus of the animal by means of which it can
affix itself to other bodies, and the peculiar sinus or sulcation of the
hinge through which the byssus passes from the animal to those
extraneous bodies, are sufficient to remove it from the Ostrea genus, in
which case if we still adhere to the Linnæan method we can place it only
among his Mytili or Pinnæ, and it has certainly less affinity with
either of those than with Ostrea. Perhaps the name of Perna under which
this shell has been mentioned a few years ago might have been as well
preserved, but that name Lamarck assigns to an extensive genus of which
Ostrea Isognomum is the type, and it is therefore better to retain the
name Malleus than to alter it to another which could not fail at this
time to create confusion. The same consequence would as unquestionably
result were we to sub-divide the Malléacées into different genera
according to the configuration of the shell or number of its lateral
lobes.
The definition of Malleus in the _Règne Animal_ of Cuvier appears to
intimate the same objection; it does not consider the hammer like form
of the shell as any criterion, it is only stated that the Marteaux are
inequivalve and irregular, that they have a simple hollow for the
ligament as in the oysters, but that they are distinguished by a slope
at the side of the ligament for the passage of the byssus.
It is assuredly true that the presence of a byssus in this tribe of
shells displaces them from any immediate analogy with the Ostrea, where
as Cuvier remarks “Linnæus left them.” But, if however, we attentively
examine the hinge of the common oyster, the two valves, and the oyster
as it lies within the valves, we shall perceive with this exception a
pretty near approximation. The great objection is, that the animal of
the tribe of shells now before us protrudes a byssus from its body
through a lateral opening on one side or slope of the ligament of the
hinge; if we closely inspect the valves of the oyster, we also find a
slight depression or hollow upon each side of the cartilage of the
hinge; these are small, and usually somewhat lamellar. The oyster,
moreover, as it lies in the shell, seems capable of expanding or
spreading that part of the body which lies under the hinge laterally
upon and into these depressions, a circumstance very easily observed in
the half famished oyster, because these lateral expansions of the animal
are then more visibly elongated along the passage of these lateral
grooves of the hinge, and give the pointed end of the animal a somewhat
cornuted appearance. Under the same circumstance these processes adhere
as they lie in the hollow of these grooves, and thus suggests the idea
of the animal having exerted itself by such extension to obtain
refreshment through these lateral hollows. Those hollows are also so far
pervious as to admit the ingress of moisture while the shells are
closed, in the same manner as it is possible the Malleus genus may
receive moisture under the same circumstance through the sinus, whence
the byssus is protruded. These peculiarities considered, may perhaps
afford some further justification of Linnæus in placing the hammer
shells with the Ostreæ. It has been indeed advanced that Linnæus was not
aware of these hammer shells being furnished with a byssus, or that he
would have referred them to the Mytili, but this observation cannot be
correct, because in the figure given of these shells by Seba, to which
Linnæus refers, the byssus, which is very conspicuous, is represented
pendent or hanging to a considerable length out of the shell.
From an attentive examination of the different Conchological authors, it
does not appear to us that the shell before us has hitherto been
figured, and we have reason also to believe that it has never been
described. These circumstances are the more probable since, as we have
before observed, the shell is at this time very little known among the
Continental Cabinets. The nearest approach, so far as we can judge from
the description, unassisted by any figure, is the Marteau Normal
(Malleus Normalis) of Lamarck, a species defined by him as _testa
biloba_; _lobo basis unico anticali ad normam_, our shell is certainly
bilobate, for it has only one lateral lobe at the beak, and that
moreover advances from the beak, pretty nearly, though not exactly, in a
right line; but its general description does not sufficiently accord
with our shell to authorise as a conclusion that they are the same.
Lamarck informs us that there are two varieties of his Malleus Normalis,
one of which is a native of the ocean of the Great Indies, the other of
the seas of New Holland. The first, or Indian kind, he describes as
being on the inside as well as outside of a black colour, with a longish
lobe at the base of the shell.[22] The New Holland kind is described of
a whitish colour, with the lobe at the base abbreviated.[23]
The two last-mentioned shells which Lamarck concludes to be varieties of
the same species, may perhaps prove hereafter to be species distinct
from each other, as Lamarck has himself shewn to be the case with
respect to the common black and the white hammer shells. The black
supposed variety of Malleus Normalis we apprehend to be distinct from
the shell before us, but it is possible that the New Holland shell which
he describes as being whitish, with the lobe at the base abbreviated,
may be a worn or much depauperated specimen of our present shell; it
certainly does not accord with our shell in any tolerable state of
preservation.
Lamarck says nothing of any ruddiness or testaceous hues in his New
Holland variety of _Normalis_, and admitting these colours to indicate
that the shell had been found with its animal in a living state, we can
scarcely conceive the dark fuscous spotting which is so conspicuous in
the species could by any ordinary accident be so entirely obliterated as
appears to be the case in Lamarck’s specimen, if his New Holland variety
of Malleus Normalis be really of this species; and it may be further
added that if our present shell was actually intended by his Malleus
Normalis, the defects of his shell has necessarily influenced his
specific character and rendered it imperfect.