64 MELVILL : MEMOIR OF THE LATE HUGH CUMING. 
He was a well-known figure at Stevens’ sales, in King 
Street, Covent Garden, in the days when shell sales used to be 
more frequent than at present, and always well attended, with a 
considerable amount of competition amongst the many votaries, 
as Miers, Lombe-Taylor, Angas, Barclay, &c., who all were in 
the habit of personally attending. In April, 1865, at the sale of 
the collection of the late J. Dennison, of Liverpool, which 
abounded in rare and beautiful examples, I have a very vivid 
recollection of seeing him sitting before the green baize table 
in front of the auctioneer’s desk, and very intent on the various 
treasures as they were handed round lot by lot before being put 
up to auction. *I remember him as a somewhat stout, rubi- 
cund, good-humoured looking old man, with scanty, white curly 
hair, dressed in black, with open waistcoat, and white-frilled 
shirt front. I remember, too, seeing him secure what probably 
was his last purchase—Pseudachatina Downesit and P. Wrightit 
on the third day of the sale. He died four months later (Aug. ro). 
That winter (1865) his duplicates mostly of land shells were sold 
by Stevens, enormous quantities of the commoner forms of 
Flelicostyla, Cochlostyla, Cyclophorus, etc., being put up to auction, 
proving how enormous were the stores of duplicates amassed, 
especially from the Philippine Islands. 
The disposition of his collection, and the offer of them 
primarily to the British Museum for the sum of £6,000, 
occasioned the Keeper of the Natural History department (the 
late Sir Richard Owen,) much anxiety, his first fear being 
that so valuable and unique a collection should be allowed to 
depart from this country, and it is worth while here transcribing 
part of the appeal issued by Professor Owen, in which he urges, 
in impassioned language, the purchase by the nation, in a letter 
addressed to Dean Buckland, a trustee of the British Museum, 
during Mr. Cuming’s life-time, in 1848, when the first offer for 
sale was made, but not then accepted :— 
*T exhibit a photograph of Mr. Cuming, taken about the year 1861, by Joseph 
Sidebotham, Esq., of Bowdon, who gave it me many years ago. ; 
J.C., viii., Apr. 1895. 
