28 J. GWYN JEFFREYS ON BROCCHI’S COLLECTION 
2. Norzs on Broccnr’s Collection of SuRAPENNINE SHeEtts. By J. 
Gwyn Jerrreys, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.G.S. (Read November 7, 
1883). 
Havine lately passed through Milan on my way to Venice, I took 
the opportunity of examining the collection of fossil shells made by 
Professor Brocchi and described in his classical work ‘ Conchiologia 
fossile subapennina’. That remarkable work was published in 1814, 
when the study of paleontology was almost in its infancy. It was 
based on the Linnean system and nomenclature. 
Giovanni Battista Brocchi was not only a celebrated geologist but 
also a botanist, an entomologist, and an antiquary. His first essay 
was on Egyptian sculpture, and was published at Venice in 1792, 
when he was only 20 years old. His other works on different sub- 
jects were about fifty in number. In 1802 he was appointed to the 
chair of natural history at Brescia, and he afterwards became 
Inspector of Minesin Lombardy. He died in 1826, at the age of 54. 
The first volume of the ‘ Conchiologia’ contains an interesting 
introduction, an elaborate treatise on the progress of the study of 
fossil conchology in Italy from 1300 to 1811, and geological re- 
marks on the Subapennine and adjacent formations. The second 
volume is devoted to the enumeration and description of the fossil 
shells, and is illustrated by 16 well-executed copper plates. The 
‘Conchiologia’ is a monument of careful and conscientious labour, 
and is invaluable to every paleontologist. 
The collection was shown to me, in the absence of Professor 
Stoppani, by Siguor Francesco Molinari, an assistant at the Civico 
Museo of the Reale Istituto, whose courteous attention I am glad 
to acknowledge. I was informed that the collection had been pre- 
sented to the Museum after Brocchi’s death, and arranged in 1870 
by Emilio Spreafico, an engineer who had been the author of a 
geological chart of the Ticinese Canton. Such an arrangement of any 
typical collection evidently leads to occasional misplacement and 
mistakes. Even Linné’s collection of shells, now in the possession 
of the Linnean Society, was said not to have been kept intact after 
its presentation to the Society by Sir J. E. Smith, and it therefore 
cannot be implicitly relied on for the identification of some species. 
There is no question that the study of fossil in comparison with 
living forms is indispensable to a thorough knowledge of any branch 
of zoology in which the remains are preserved, especially as regards 
the Mollusca, Polyzoa, Crustacea, and Testaceous Annelids. I fear 
sufficient attention has not been paid to this study in the case of the 
last-named two departments of the Invertebrata. 
In offering the following observations I will refer to the “* Cata- 
logo ed illustrazione delle specie”-in the second volume of the 
‘ Conchiologia ’ and to the pages there given. 
