190 AMERICAN JOURNAL 



and perfection. If all the collections of Europe and America, 

 public and private, were united in one. the series would still 

 be inferior in completeness to the combined collections of the 

 British Museum and Mr. Cuming. Bat the latter is the col- 

 lection par excellence. Mr. Cuming possesses from twenty to 

 thirty thousand species and well-marked varieties, illustrated. 

 in most instances, by several specimens, acquired during not 

 less than half a century of untiring personal research. ' Not 

 restricting,' said Professor Owen several years ago, in the 

 'Annals of Natural History,' 'his pursuit to the stores and 

 shops of curiosity-mongers of our seaports, or depending on 

 casual opportunities of obtaining rarities by purchase and 

 exchange, he has devoted more than thirty years of his life in 

 arduous and hazardous personal exertions, dredging, diving, 

 wading, wandering, under the equator and through the tem- 

 perate zones, both north and south, in the Atlantic, in the 

 Pacific, in the Indian Ocean, and among the islands of its rich 

 archipelago, in the labor of collecting from their native seas, 

 shores, lakes, rivers, and forests, the marine, fiuviatile, and 

 terrestrial mollusks, sixty thousand of whose shelly skeletons, 

 external and internal, are accumulated in orderly series in the 

 cabinets with which the floors of his house now groan.' Since 

 this was written, Mr. Cuming has added largely to his collec- 

 tion, and still labors unremittingly, purchasing and inter- 

 changing specimens with collectors in other parts of the 

 world. 



"The 'Conchologia Iconica' was commenced in 1343, as the 

 exponent of this and other English collections of shells, and 

 its publication has proceeded with uninterrupted regularity for 

 twenty years. Part 236, just ready, will complete the Four- 

 teenth Volume. The number of plates contained in these 

 volumes is 1890, comprising not fewer, probably, than 15,000 

 figures of shells of the natural size, all drawn and lithographed 

 by the same characteristic pencil, that of Mr. G. B. Sowerby. 

 The system of nomenclature adopted is that of Lamarck, 

 modified to meet the exigencies of recent discoveries. With 

 the name of the species is given a summary of its leading 

 specific characters in Latin and English. Then the authority 

 for the name is quoted, accompanied by a reference to the 

 work where the species was originally described ; and next in 

 order are its synonyms — the names given to the species by 

 other authors, different from that to which it is entitled by 

 priority, or in consequence of the introduction of an improved 

 system of genera. The habitat of the species is next given, 

 accompanied, where possible, by particulars of the circum- 

 stances under which it is found, such as the nature of the soil, 

 depth, vegetation, etc.; and to this are added some remarks 



