THE NAUTILUS. 127 
In all, my collection contains 62 species, and as I examine them 
from time to time, I not only seé many interesting shells, whose 
names are all as common to the conchologist as household words, but 
I am also transported in imagination back to those northern regions 
whence came the early ancestors of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. 
POSTAGE ON SPECIMENS OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
In Tue Nautitus, Vol. VII, p. 58, September, 1893, we have 
had something to say on the subject of postage on specimens of 
natural history to foreign countries. We have there detailed the 
efforts made by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 
to obtain lower rates, explaining that the present regulations of the 
Universal Postal Union permit such specimens to be mailed only at 
letter rates. It is indeed true that many countries have Parcel 
Posts, the charges for which are lower than those for letters. The 
aim of the Academy has been to secure the adoption by the Postal 
Union of a proposition offered by the U. S. Post Office Department 
that specimens of natural history be admitted to the international 
mails at the rates for, and under the conditions applicable to, sam- 
ples of merchandise. This proposition was, however, rejected at the 
last International Postal Congress of Vienna. 
At the International Congress of Zoology, held at Leyden, Hol- 
land, in September, 1895, Dr. Chas. Wardell Stiles, official delegate 
to the U. S. Government, offered resolutions, which were subse- 
quently adopted, that the Swiss Government be requested, through 
its delegate to the Congress of Zoology, to propose to the next Inter- 
national Postal Congress an amendment to the regulations thereof 
whereby specimens of Natural History shall be carried in the mails 
of the Universal Postal Union at the rates for samples of merchan- 
dise ; that an appeal should be addressed to all the delegates and 
members of the Congress of Zoology to bring this amendment to 
the notice of their respective governments, so that those govern- 
ments should instruct their delegates to the Postal Congress to act 
favorably upon thesame; that copies of these resolutions be sent by 
the Secretary of the Congress of Zoology to all governments forming 
part of the Universal Postal Union and which were not represented 
at the Congress of Zoology. 
