ACCOUNTS, ESTIMATES, &C. OP THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 47 



The Collection of Shells obtained by purchase on the moderate terms of the testamentary 

 disposition of Hugh Cuming, Esq., f.l.s., etc., was the principal life-work of that perse- 

 vering and singularly gifted collector. Mr. Cuming, after laying the foundation of his 

 Collections during a residence in South America, visited nuraerous localities in tiie Pacific 

 Ocean in a vessel freighted by him for the express purpose of (..btaining objects of Natural 

 History, in a. voyage undertaken in and continued during the years 1827, 1828, 1829, and 

 1830, in which lie personally explored the western coast of South America, its adjacent 

 islands, and many of those in the South Pacific Ocean : thereby he not only enriched Zoology 

 by a vast number of new specimens, move especially of the Molluscous classes, but greatly 

 added to the value of previous collections, as well as his own, by rhe careful observation and 

 record of the locality of each shell, and of all the main conditions of its habitat, as depth of 

 water, nature of bed, whether sand, ooze, rock, coral, etc., in which the animal lived. From 

 these data not only has the anatomical and physiological knowledge of the Molluscous animal 

 been obtained, but geology also has profited by inferences deducible from such observa- 

 tions of the living representatives of fossil shells. 



Mr. Cuming returned with his vast collections to England in J 831. And, after greatly 

 adding to his own series by means of exchanges of his new species with the duplicate 

 rarities of the cabinets in Continental iVI useums, he determined on exploring another 

 hemisphere of the globe. In 1836 he proceeded to the Philippine Islands, the Interior of 

 which was opened to him by permission of the Queen Regent of Spain, and his pursuits 

 were facilitated by powerful recommendations from her government. 



Mr. Cuming explored the entire group of these islands, collecting more especially the land 

 shells of their forests und the marine shells of their coasts. 



From the Philippines he proceeded to Singapore and Malacca, and returned to England 

 in June 1840, bringing with him a grand collection of Zoological and Botanical specimens, 

 including more than 3,000 species and varieties of shells, the greater part of which appeared 

 " to be new to science," to the most experienced Conchologist of that time, W. J. 

 Broderip, f.r s. 



From the date of his return, Mr. Cuming continued to apply the duplicates of his new 

 species, as before, to the acquisition by exchange, of desiderata to his collection, visiting 

 for that purpose, not only the Museums of Europe but those of the United States of 

 America. He also purchased largely, no price being deemed too great for the acquisition 

 of a novelty which could not otherwise be obtained. 



His Collection of Shells was the main object of his life; and in the state of perfection 

 in which he left it in 1866, it has been acquired by the British Museum. 



The discoveries and labours of Mr. Hugh Cuming do honour to his country; the fruition 

 of them by Naturalists of all countries now depends mainly on the acquisition of the space 

 required for the due arrangement, exhibition, facility of access, and comparison of the 

 rarities which the nation has acquired. Some of the statistics of the Collection will be 

 found noted in the Special Report from the Department of Zoology. 



Among the choice rarities of the Collection brought by Mr. Cuming from the Philippines 

 in 1840, was a specimen of Siliceous Sponge, described and figured in the " Transactions, 

 of the Zoological Society" (vol. III., p. 203, pi. 13), under the name Euplectella 

 Aspergillum. The specimen on which this species was founded continued to be " unique " to 

 the time of Mr. Cuming's decease. In the past year other specimens, in fine condition, 

 and some exemplifying stages of growth, of this most singular and beautiful of its class, 

 have been transmitted from the Philippines, and iiave been added by purchase to the 

 Department of Zoology. They are exhibited with the corals in the Mammahan Saloon. 



In the class Replilia, a new genus of colubrine snake (^Harpetathiops, Gunth.) dis- 

 tinguished by a uniform black coloration, is represented by a specimen obtained from West 

 Africa ; whence also has been received a third species of a rare and singular poisonous 

 genus, Alractaspis. A beautiful example of Aspidiotes, a form of Boidce not previously 

 known to exist in Australia, has been transmitted from Queensland. Twenty-one species, 

 formeily desiderata in the Collection of the group of dwarfish snakes which, from their 

 rudimental eyes, are called Tythlopes, have been among the accessions in 1866. 



In the collection of Central American Fishes, nearly ;50 species of the marine kinds have 

 proved to be identical on both sides of the Isthmus of Panama, yielding very significant 

 evidence of the existence of a former communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. 

 The examples of the Solenostoma in Colonel Playfair's collection of the Fishes of Zanzibar 

 are interesting as the first evidences of that genus that have been rediscovered since the 

 time of Pallas. The specimens prove that the female cariies the impregnated ova in a 

 distinct exterior pouch, and not the male, as in other lophobranchiate fishes. Among the 

 collection of Canadian fresh-water fishes transmitted by the Curator of the Museum at 

 i*lontreal, may be noted the Percopsis, a salmonoid fish, with the physiognomy of a perch. 

 A pair, male and female, of one of the rarest of the Mediterranean fishes, Ausonia, was 

 taken for the first time in 1866 off the British coast. The female has been secured for the 

 Museum ; the male was retained for a local collection in Cornwall. 



In the Departuieni of Geology the donation by Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart., of fossil 

 remains from post-tertiaiy deposits in Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia, includes 

 specimens deserving special notice. Two of these have yielded additional evidence of the 

 character of the extinct Marsupial Tiger {Thylacoleo carnifex), other specimens exem- 

 plifying those of the great Wombat (Phascohmy maynus) ; of the Nototherium ; of the 

 gigantic Diprotodon, and other extinct pouched animals of that continent; including 



249. 03 parts 



