PREFACE. XVll 



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 sy- 

 stems, and the demolition of old ones ; the 

 disregard of former, and the abuse of con- 

 temporary 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 pre- 

 sent 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 



