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PREFACE. 



Having been, dm-ing many years, engaged in 

 education, and having had opportunities of ob- 

 sening the good effects of natural history upon 

 the minds of my pupils, as a means of leading 

 them to a more minute examination of the won- 

 derful ^^'orks of the Creator, and as supplying 

 profitable and curious subjects for thought and 

 pm'suit, I believed it would not be altogether 

 a misapplication of time, to recommend those 

 elegant branches of it, Conchology and Botany, 

 to a more extensive circle of the younger class of 

 society. If I succeed in exciting a taste for pur- 

 suits, which I have happily experienced to bene- 

 fit my owTi mind, and by which, I have reason 

 to beheve, many have been instructed; I shall 

 lejoice that I have submitted the following lines 

 to public notice. 



My readers must be awai'e that it would be 

 impossible by any engraving or painting of shells, 



