202 MELVILL: BRITISH PIONEERS IN CONCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 



Bulivius) papyracea{M.^yie)2indi Valuta harpa are delineated for 

 the first time. 



Epoch iv., 1825 — 1858. 



The last period being, as I said, conspicuous for the 

 development of systematic classification, mainly due to the 

 labours of two energetic Frenchmen, this fourth epoch is 

 signalized by the high spirit of British enterprise, exhibited in 

 several successful scientific expeditions and cruises, on the chief 

 of which I shall briefly touch, coupled with the arduous personal 

 explorations of scientific travellers, more especially Mr. Hugh 

 Cuming, whose labours were primarily directed to shells. 

 The number of papers and treatises on Conchological subjects 

 gets larger year by year, and it is impossible in a brief sketch of 

 this kind, to mention more than the leading of them. 



It was in 1825 that Dr. John Edward Gray, the enlightened 

 keeper of the Zoological Department at the British Museum for 

 so many years, published one of his earliest, if not his earliest, 

 treatises on Mollusca, ' List and Description of some species of 

 Shells not taken notice of by Lamarck,' 1825. This, with some 

 minor papers, was followed by an important one ' On the Diffi- 

 culty of distinguishing certain Genera of Testaceous Molluscs 

 by their Shells alone,' 1835, printed in 'Philosophical Transac- 

 tions.' In 1848 he published 'The structure of Chiton.' From 

 1842 — 1857 he was engaged with his wife, Mrs. Maria Emma 

 Gray, who was responsible for the beautifully executed and 

 accurate plates, four hundred in number, in the important work 

 entitled ' Figures of Molluscous Animals selected from various 

 Authors.' Later on, he published several British Museum 

 Catalogues of the Mollusca, including the Pteropoda, Brachi- 

 poda, Volutidae, and Olividse, and a valuable treatise on the 

 ' Tongues of the Mollusca.' 



He rivalled Messrs. Sowerby, Adams, and Reeve in the 

 number of new species he described. Hardly a genus that 

 does not contain some shell to which he stood godfather. 



J.C vi., Api-., 1890. 



