PLATE I. 



Htolland were consigned to this country for the sake of safety, arid 

 being in some instances afterwards dispersed, had tended, in no 

 small degree, to enrich the cabinets of our own country. It was at 

 this period that many very rare shells occurred to our observation 

 which have since disappeared, and among others, several of those 

 varieties of Cedo nuUi which had been before held in other parts of 

 Europe in considerable estimation. In the year 1797 we saw no 

 less than five specimens of this rare shell, all varying a little from 

 each other, in the cabinet of the French Minister of State, M. de 

 Calonne ; in one, the colour was pale, in another deeper, one was 

 lineated, and another distinguished by having three distinct bands. 



At the dispersion of the Calonnian Museum, which took place 

 by public sale rather more than twenty years ago, the series of 

 these valuable shells passed into the fine collection of the present 

 .EarlTankerville, a collection his lordship was then forming for the 

 pleasure of an amiable and beloved daughter since deceased, and 

 these shells are still considered among the more choice rarities of 

 that valuable cabinet. 



The shell, however, more immediately under our consideration, 

 the variety, delineated at figure 3, is from another source ; it was 

 among the spoils of rarities sent over to this country from Holland, 

 at the time of the insurrection connected with the first inroads of 

 the French into that country. The shell passed into the hands of a 

 merchant of curiosities in London, and being afterwards sold, its 

 destination is uncertain ; the price affixed was twenty guineas. 



This shell corresponded very nearly with the variety denomi- 

 nated Seba's Cedo nulli, having once formed a part of the museum 



