C. Identification of the Species with Helix Janthina by Gesenius

• Identification of the Species with Helix Janthina by Gesenius.

He thus identifies the species with Helix Janthina. In the light of all that has been said in connection with Pliny’s Buccinum it will be sufficiently clear that the great Hebraist betrays muddled zoology in confounding the Buccinum of the Roman naturalist with the Janthina genus. The indication “color obscure violaceus,” however, if detached from the context, might fairly describe the coloration of a species of the genus Buccinum (= Purpura of the moderns) but of such a one which being a non-Mediterranean mollusc, could hardly have been envisaged by Pliny. Gesenius, in any case, has nothing of the kind in view.