Keone eR 
(PY owns iF 
SS e 
R\CA 
A simple Catalogue of all the known recent Shells has long 
been a great desideratum to the Conchologist. The discoveries of 
the many adventurous naturalists of the present century are of 
such a prolific character, that an Index of Species referring to 
the multifarious books and pamphlets wherein they have been 
described or figured is greatly im request, if only to counteract the 
dangerous repetition of specific names. The increase of synonymes 
arises chiefly from the circumstance of species being described in 
different countries under different names; and as the objects of 
Natural History can only be satisfactorily determined by the aid of 
an universal, not a national system of nomenclature, too much 
attention cannot be paid to the operations of foreign conchologists. 
The importance of keeping an Official Register, as it were, of 
Species, is in no branch of Natural History more strikingly de- 
monstrated than in that of Birds; the catalogue of ornithological 
synonymes is said to be twice as extensive as that of authorised 
names, or, in other words, the species of that portion of the Ani- 
mal Kingdom have been named three times over. This is not, 
however, the case with SZe//s; the nomenclature of Conchology 
exhibits a very tolerable degree of purity, and it is confidently 
hoped that the present effort to maintain it will prove effectual. 
The plan adopted in Tur Concnonocist’s NomENcLator is 
that of an alphabetical list of species, in a systematic arrangement 
of Genera; a line is devoted to each species, the specific name 
