It does not appear that this very curious variety of the Imperial Sun Trochus is known in any of the continental cabinets: the olivaceous kind, which as before observed, is to be regarded as the type of the species, though esteemed scarce, is to be found in every continental cabinet of importance. Indeed, the olive kind maintained a very high reputation and price for many years after the time of Captain Cook, who brought several of them to England; from whence those continental cabinets were, in the first instances, supplied. Since that time the same seas have been attentively explored by Admiral Bligh, in the ships of his Majesty under his command; and through his researches, this shell, which was once considered of such unusual rarity, has become rather more common. The Pink, or Roseate variety, the immediate object of our present illustration, has hitherto, however, escaped all research, and it still remains as it was esteemed originally, after a lapse of nearly fifty years, not merely scarce, but perfectly unique. An ingenious French writer of the present day, Denys de Montfort, in describing the olivaceous kind, the type, as before remarked, of the present species, has paid an appropriate tribute of applause to the memory of its original discoverers. “It is,” says he, “to the Voyages of the celebrated Captain Cook, and to the researches of the indefatigable Naturalists who accompanied him, that we owe the knowledge of this fine and magnificent shell.” “This shell,” he adds, “appears to be exposed to such a swarm of aggressors, that his Mollusca (or animal) must lead a life of activity and war: his shelly covering is ploughed, or furrowed, and pierced by a host of enemies, and he must necessarily employ almost the whole of life in repressing their attacks, and in constantly repairing the breaches and perforations they occasion, by the exudation of the nacrous molecules, or fluid, with which nature has furnished him, in order to preserve the inner coating of his shelly habitation entire.” Such is really the appearance of this shell in general; we have seen it so completely despoiled of its exterior coating by these attacks, as to render it impossible to form any tolerable conception of the shell when perfect; even an approach towards perfection in its outer coating is very rare. The most complete of its kind in the collection of the late Admiral Bligh, and probably selected as the best he ever met with, was perfect in this respect than might be expected. By one of those rare chances which sometimes happen, the Roseate variety, which forms the subject of our present illustration, had entirely escaped every accident of this nature, insomuch, that its figure may be regarded as that of a very perfect shell.