"I HEREBY BEQUEATH" 



By Margaret C. Teskey 



It seems fitting to close this scries of articles with the plea to consider 

 well what may become of the treasured shell collection when the collector 

 will have finished with it. Each person who reads these lines will recall 

 that someone he once knew owned a shell collection, and has remarked: 

 "Whatever became of those shells, I wonder?" 



The chances are that they were given to a child who evinced a passing 

 interest, were played with until scattered and gone. Maybe they brought a 

 few cents when the estate was auctioned off. Or they may be awaiting 

 discovery, packed away beneath the eaves of one attic or another. In any 

 case, if the person who built up the collection had looked ahead to the 

 inevitable, his treasures would still be a source of pleasure or of reference, 

 shells being the durable things that they are. 



Two examples come to mind which serve to illustrate the "dos" and 

 "don'ts" of leaving behind a collection of shells. In each case the collection 

 came into the possession of the Buffalo Museum of Science, but the circum- 

 stances and results were vastly dissimilar. 



The first collection was made by a lady during the later years of the 

 last century and was of considerable magnitude considering that it had 

 been built up by an amateur. When the collector died, her daughter, 

 although totally uninterested in shells, resolved to keep the collection intact 

 as a tribute to her mother's memory. The years passed and finally in 1950 

 the shells were presented in the name of the collector to the museum. 

 Then it was that the toll of time and neglect became evident. If labels had 

 ever accompanied the larger shells which had waited out their fate on dusty 

 shelves, they had been lost long ago. The hundreds of lots of the smaller 

 species had been wrapped not too well in paper upon which all data had 

 been written in ink, now so faded as to be all but illegible. During one 

 packing or another the brittle paper had flaked and fallen apart and the 

 loose shells thus became valueless save as craft material in the museum's 

 hobby division. And so it was that a very small part of the collection made 

 with such loving care is now preserved as of any value. 



The second case concerns a collection built up in over 50 years of loving 

 care. It was somewhat smaller than the first because it was constantly 

 being reviewed and duplicates weeded out and passed on to appreciative 

 collectors. The owner, spurred perhaps by witnessing the fate of the other 

 collection, made careful and detailed provisions in her will as to the dis- 

 posal of her shells: "All specimens or lots which will increase the value of 

 the collection of the Buffalo Museum of Science are to be added thereto," 

 she directed, naming at the same time an administrator with whom she had 

 discussed her wishes. The remaining shells she directed to be distributed to 

 the members of the shell-study group with which she had been associated 

 for over half a century. So by wise planning a scientific study collection 

 has been enriched, and scores of carefully labeled shells are a constant 

 reminder of a thoughtful friend to those she left behind. 



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