PKEFACE. 



A THOUSAND years a^o it wa^ remarked by one of the early 

 fathers of natural history, that " much labor yet remains, and 

 much is likely to remain ; nor will op[)ortunilies of adtiinir some- 

 thing be wanling to him who shall be l)orn after a thousand ages.'' 

 JMulluin adh tic rest (it opcris, miiltuinqtie reslaliit ; nee u Hi nalo 

 post viille secnla pvcecludetur occasio atiquid adjiciendi. 



He that brings to its place in system, an individual hitherto 

 undiscovered or unnoticed, produces an additional testimony of 

 the unbounded power of HIM, who in all His works is mtixiinus 

 in iiia.tiinis, rnaximus in minimis ; mightiest in the niightiest, and 

 mightiest in the minutest. 



The materials of natural history, in their various compartments, 

 are of such huge accumulation, as to occasion no small difficulty 

 in the formation of distinctive catalogues, founded on scientific 

 and classical distribution. 



The illustrious writers of the French school have come boldly 

 forth, and broken the trammels by which the science of Conchology 



