sere: NSMTiLus. 
VoL. X. OCTOBER, 1896. No. 6 
SOME NOTES ON THE COLLECTION OF SHELLS IN THE MUSEUMS OF 
PARIS, BERLIN AND AMSTERDAM. 
BY C. W. JOHNSON. 
The collection of shells in the Museum of Zoology, Jardin des 
Plantes, Paris, is one often referred to as being the only collection 
in which you ean see the recent and fossil species side by side. One, 
therefore, naturally imagines what such a collection should be, and, 
as usual under such circumstances, one is somewhat disappointed. 
The collection is distributed as follows: Around the entire outer 
portion or railing of the first gallery, in a case about two feet in 
width, are arranged the Pelecypoda, while on the second gallery 
around the entire wall, in a wide, slanting case or shelf (with corals 
above and a series of eight drawers beneath) are arranged the Gas- 
tropoda. This necessarily scatters the collection to a great extent, 
and makes it very inconvenient. A collection of the recent and 
fossil species arranged together is very interesting and instructive, 
but it should be a special collection of such forms as can be readily 
traced back through geological time, and which anyone would con- 
sider to be the prototypes of the recent species; in other words, the 
primary object of such a collection should be to show the evolution 
of species and genera. The study of recent and fossil] mollusca is 
now divided into well-defined specialties; no one person can cover 
with success more than a few closely related groups, faunze or 
formations; so it seems to us that a large collection should be ar- 
ranged accordingly. The paleontologist must be a geologist, also ; 
