1 85 5-i 857.] MAZATLAN SHELLS. 



141 



their arms away as if they did not care for them. We were out 

 till half-past two." 



In this spring (1855) he purchased for ^50, through the 

 liberal help of his brother-in-law, Mr. Herbert Thomas, the 

 great collection of Mazatlan shells. This materially affected his 

 subsequent life : it not only occupied much of his time, and 

 brought him prominently forward as a naturalist, but it eventu- 

 ally led to his settlement in America. An account of this col- 

 lection is found in the Catalogue he printed for the British 

 Museum, and in his Report to the British Association : — 



" The largest collection ever brought to Europe from one 

 locality (with the single exception of Mr. Cuming's stores) 

 was made at Mazatlan [at the mouth of the Gulf of California], 

 during the years 1848-50, by a Belgian gentleman of the name 

 of F. Reigen. He did not live to enjoy the fruits of his almost 

 unparalleled labours; and after his death, in 1850, the collec- 

 tion was sent for sale, partly to Liverpool and partly to Havre. 

 The Liverpool portion measured about fourteen tons of forty 

 cubic feet each. It was bought by Mr. G. Hulse . . . who 

 fortunately deposited the bulk of the collection under lock 

 and key in a chamber by itself ; but, to save room, he im- 

 mediately disposed of most of the large shells. . . . Cir- 

 cumstances enabled me to make a searching examination of 

 Mr. Hulse's stores, and to form a geographical collection from 

 their contents. (Of this collection, amounting then to 440 

 species, an account was laid before the British Association 

 at Liverpool : vide Reports, 1854, p. 107.) Finding that in a 

 small manufacturing town this could not be made available for 

 the purposes of science, I acceded to the request of Dr. Gray 

 that it should be deposited in the British Museum. . . . Being 

 desirous of making [it] as complete as possible, and finding 

 that the original stores were in danger of being dispersed, and 

 so rendered useless for science, I obtained possession of the 

 remainder of the vast collection, and subjected it to a renewed 

 and more rigid scrutiny. . . . The whole number of shells 

 passed under review probably exceeded one hundred thousand " 

 (B. A. Report, 1856, pp. 241, 242). 



