MELVILL: BRITISH PIONEERS IN CONCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 1 97 



Mr. George Humphrey combined the business of auctioneer 

 with that of dealer in sliells and objects of vertu. The prin- 

 cipal catalogue he was instrumental in drawing up was that of 

 M. de Calonne, in 1797. In this catalogue a considerable 

 number of generic or specific names are introduced by 

 Humphrey, so it is of importance to students of nomenclature. 

 Amongst his genera are Eutropia=Phasianella (Lam.), Galerus, 

 Onustus, and Elenchus. 



DaCosta was the first to separate Aporrhais from Strombiis. 



Mr. Thomas Pennant (1726 — 1798), of Downing, Flint- 

 shire, the ancestor of the present Lord Penrhyn, was an enthusi- 

 astic conchologist. In 1750 he commenced a correspondence with 

 Linnseus, to whom he had sent a specimen of Anomia from 

 northern seas. Possessed of ample means, he was able to in- 

 dulge his tastes for travel, and may almost have been said to 

 have introduced Scotland to the people of England, through 

 his published accounts of his travels in that country in 1769. 

 He wrote a treatise on shells in vol. iv. of his " British 

 Zoology." This work threw a good deal of light upon a subject 

 then but imperfectly studied, and showed an advance upon pre- 

 vious attempts of the kind. 



In 1784, Martyn published "The Universal Conchologist," 

 part i., in which the plates, as the work proceeded, were much 

 admired, more so than the letterpress, which was too scanty and 

 not free from many errors. 



The same year Messrs. W. Boys and G. Walker published 

 a work, entitled " Testacea Minuta Rariora Nuperrime Detecta 

 in Arena Litoris Sandvichensis," dedicated to the late Duchess 

 of Portland. This curious little work is an account of some of 

 the molluscs of Sandwich, in Kent. The Revd. Dr. Lightfoot, 

 author of the "Flora Scotica," also described some minute 

 shells, not before observed on English coasts. Several of these 

 are foraminifera. 



In 1797 Mr. J. Adams described a number of minute shells 



