PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 335 



nexion with von Fichtel aud von MolFs Testacea Microscopica, the date 

 of which was quoted as 1808. A few months ago, however, a copy had 

 been discovered dated 1798, and a few weeks ago the speaker himself 

 had had the good fortune to come across a specimen of that earHer 

 issue. Setting aside the question of the importance of giving proper 

 priority to the nomenclature of the species named by von Fichtel 

 and von Moll in 1798, the reason he laid stress on this discrepancy 

 of dates was that he had a further interesting point to bring forward. 

 A bookseller with whom he had recently discussed this 1798 edition of 

 von Fichtel stated that his father, when in Paris many years ago, 

 purchased the whole of the original water-colour drawings from which 

 all the plates in Testacea Microscopica were made, and that he (the son) 

 was willing to dispose of them. The bargain was struck, and exhibited 

 on the table were the original water-colour drawings made by von 

 Fichtel, afterwards engraved (on copper or steel) to illustrate his 

 Testacea Microscopica, of which the R.M.S. possessed a copy dated 180;^). 

 All (and several hundred copies of the work were issued) were coloured 

 from the water-colour originals by hand with a fidelity that was perfectly 

 amazing. Now, the dirty little cover in which the drawings were sold 

 to him had written upon it the title " von Fichtel and von Moll. 

 Testacea Microscopica," and bore the date 1803, leaving it still an open 

 question whether all these species were still to l)e dated 1803 — as they 

 had been hundreds of times-^or 1798, which they really must have 

 l)een, since there were copies of the book extant dated 1798. A 

 probable explanation was that the writing on the cover of the plates 

 was not von Fichtel's handwriting, and since the set of illustrations 

 was originally bought from the son of Frangois Raspail, the hand- 

 writing might have been that of his father, a well-known zoologist in 

 1794. Raspail, in his work on Ammonites^ co-ordinated all the shells 

 hitherto called Nautilus under the name of Ammonites ; but the species 

 to which the speaker particularly wished to refer was the Nautilus um- 

 bilicatulus, which is known to-daj Si^ No7iionina umbilicatula Fichtel and 

 Moll. He thought it was interesting to have before them this collection 

 of drawings, dated 1803 in the handwriting of either von Fichtel or of 

 Raspail, and at the same time the very plates from which Raspail col- 

 lected these microscopic shells into his genus Ammonites w^hen he sought 

 to establish them as the microscopic specimens of this genus. 



Mr. Hopkinson suggested that any doubt in regard to dates might 

 possibly be settled by referring to German bibliographies published 

 during the period under discussion. He had himself been able definitely 

 to fix the date of publication of each of the parts of Gmelin's edition 

 of the Systema Nature of Linn^us, between 1788 and 1793, by such 

 reference. 



The Chainnan considered that the thanks of the Society were due 

 to Mr. Heron- Allen for his exhibition. Such a collection of drawings 

 of Foraminifera as that exhibited was of great historic as well as of 

 scientific interest. It reminded him that he had in his own possession 

 a series of drawings of miscellaneous microscopic objects prepared many 

 years ago, the beauty and delicacy of execution of which was hardly to 



