PREFACE. 



THE ill tent of the following pages, is to supply the col- 

 lector of British Shells, at a moderate cost, and in a 

 portable form, with a complete descriptive catalogue of 

 all the marine species decidedly indigenous to this 

 country. 



The author has endeavoured to compile a work which 

 might suffice for the arrangement of any cabinet of British 

 Shells. For the Bivalves, the useful quarto of Turton 

 has been abridged, the abridgement (if it may be so 

 called) consisting merely in a selection and contraction 

 of the synonyms, the whole substance of the descriptions 

 being retained and frequently enlarged. As no work si- 

 milarly devoted to the elucidation of the Univalves, and 

 based on the more scientific and natural arrangement of 

 the modern systematists, had appeared ; that section has 

 demanded a stricter comparison of specimens, with the 

 drawings and descriptions of the older writers of the 

 Linncean School. Much care has been bestowed upon a 

 point neglected hitherto by our authors, the comparison 

 of our native species with those described by the older 

 naturalists, and those contained in the Faunae of Europe 

 and America. 



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