the shell itself, having been traced round its contour while lying upon the paper, and being afterwards finished in colours upon the outlines so struck, with every attention an object so estimable was presumed to merit. The history of this curious variety of the Imperial Sun Trochus is altogether interesting, and deserves explicit mention; it is one among the number of those rare shells which were discovered by that distinguished navigator, Captain Cook, in his voyage round the world. It was fished up in the Straits that divide the Island of New Zealand, now distinguished after him, by the appellation of Cook’s Straits. Upon the return of Captain Cook to England, he presented Sir Ashton Lever, among other articles of great curiosity, with this particular shell, the only one of its kind he had found. The Imperial Sun Trochus, of an olivaceous violet hue, the shell which constitutes the type of this species, though very scarce, occurred occasionally, but this Pink variety only in the solitary instance before adverted to: it was drawn up, adhering to the cable of the ship, from the depth, as it appeared, of sixty fathoms water.[7] In the general computation of the value of the various articles in the Museum of the late Sir Ashton Lever, submitted to government, previous to the grant of the Lottery which transferred the possession of that Museum from its original founder to the hands of Mr. Parkinson, this shell was estimated at the value of _one hundred guineas_: and as this valuation was arbitrary, that sum was considered as the worth of the shell while it remained in the Museum. At the final dissolution of this Museum, which took place in the months of May, June, and July of the year 1806, this shell, like the rest, was submitted to the chance of taste or caprice: it was sold on the last day of the sale, for the sum of twenty three guineas, an amount considerably below its former valuation, but sufficient, nevertheless, to shew that its attractions were still great in the mind of the connoisseur. The purchaser of this shell was at that time unknown, subsequently, however, the specimen appeared among the property sold at the residence of the Duke de Bourbon, immediately after the departure of that noblemen for France, in the beginning of the year 1815.[8] Dr. Leach has since that time informed us that he had given instructions for the purchase of this shell for the British Museum: the shell does not, however, appear in that collection, and the lamented illness of our ingenious friend, is likely, for the present, to preclude all further inquiry respecting its final destination.