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Sectiong) Lite 
INTRODUCTION 
Laborers in the field of conchological research in South Caro- 
lina have not been numerous and the few who have been so 
engaged have published but little, preferring with marked liber- 
ality to transfer the riches of their collections to others for specific 
diagnosis and illustration. The earliest mention which I have 
of the name of a South Carolinian in connection with this branch 
of zoological study is in June, 1821, when Say,' in his note follow- 
ing the description of his Bulimus mutilatus, says: ‘I am in- 
debted for it to the researches of Mr. Stephen Elliott, of Charles- 
ton, who informs me that it is there found in gardens.” Iam 
not positive that Mr. Elliott possessed a collection, but presume 
that he did, as Rafinesque mentions having “furnished several 
specimens to my friends, Elliott,’”’ and others; but Say repeatedly 
acknowledges his indebtedness to him for specimens from our 
coast and from Florida and Mexico, among them the “very re- 
markable shell, ’’ Delphinula laxa, ‘‘sent to me for examination 
by the late Mr. Stephen Elliott of Charleston, who found but a 
single specimen on Sullivan’s Island,’ which for more than sixty 
years remained a puzzle to students, who assigned it doubtfully 
to some half dozen genera of univalves, until Mr. Charles A. 
White apparently conclusively identified it with Exogyra arietina 
Romer.? 
Conspicuous among our early students was Dr. Edmund 
Ravenel, from the treasures of whose splendid collection were 
taken the types of many of the species of the pioneers, Say, Lea, 
Conrad, Binney, and others. In later years Dr. Ravenel com- 
menced the publication of descriptions of some new forms of his 
own discovery, but this work was interrupted by the War Between 
the States, and because of his failing health and almost total 
blindness was never resumed. Two catalogs of his collection 
1 Jour. Phil. Acad. Nat. Sci., II, 373. 
? Fossil Ostreidae of N. A. in the 4th Ann. Rept. U. S. Geological Survey, 
pl. 56, f. 3-7. 
Vil 
