PREFACE. Xlll 



in the superb museums of the metropolis, 

 that the following little treatise has been 

 put together. The scientific reader will 

 find in it very little of novelty, and not any 

 of a theme, which fills too many pages of 

 some conchologists, the invention of new 

 systems, and the demolition of old ones; 

 the disregard of former, and the abuse of 

 contemporary writers. It aspires, indeed, 

 to the approbation of the well-instructed, 

 as .*an useful manual, and as a correct 

 epitome of the science of Testaceology in 

 its present state. To more than this it 

 does not pretend. 



To the great naturalist Linnaeus, whose 

 comprehensive mind seems, in many in- 

 stances, to have anticipated the objections 

 which envy or ignorance would raise against 



