The history of this matchless variety of Nerita Polita is distinctly known: it is one of those shells which were brought from the Sandwich Islands by Captain Cook, when he returned from his first voyage of discovery in the South Seas. It was observed appended to an ornament worn at the breast of one of the natives, and was obtained in exchange, it is believed, for an iron hatchet; the Islander to whom it belonged esteeming it very much, and the English Officer being anxious to possess it. This circumstance of its having been affixed to an ornament worn by one of the savages, explains the reason of the shell being perforated, the hole having been made in order to pass a string through the shell to fasten it on the ornament securely. The shell was presented by Captain Cook to Sir Ashton Lever, in whose Museum it was subsequently deposited; and notwithstanding the defect above-mentioned, this little shell produced at the dissolution of the Leverian Museum, in the year 1806, the sum of nine pounds sterling, at the public hammer.[29] A celebrated collector, the late Mr. Noel Jennings, was the purchaser; and it is understood that on the subsequent dispersion of the collection of Mr. Jennings, which took place a few years ago, that it became, with some other very rare shells of that collection, the property of Lord Mount Morris. ----- Footnote 28: Linnæus describes the animal of the Nerita as a limax, the body of which is oblong, with a fleshy shield above, and a longitudinal flat disk beneath: aperture on the right side within the shield: feelers, four, placed above the mouth: eyes, two, and situated one at the tip of each of the larger feelers. This character does not exactly accord with the animal of the Nerita, for in this tribe, instead of the eyes being situated upon the apex of the longer feelers, they stand each upon a kind of papilla, situated at the outer base of the longer feelers. And besides this, it differs in some less material peculiarities. Footnote 29: Fifty-Eight Day (last day but two) lot 87, “_A most beautiful variety of the Painted Nerita, having three rich pink bands on a dark clouded ground taken from an ornament worn by a native of one of the Sandwich Islands._” END OF VOL. I. Plummer and Brewis, Printers, Love Lane, Eastcheap. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Naturalist's Repository, Volume 1 (of 5), by E. Donovan