150 
Miscellaneous. 
ance in the advancement of the scientific character of the Na- 
tional Collection of Zoology every naturalist, and especially that 
large class of the cultivators of science who are interested in the 
progress and application of conchology, must fully appreciate. 
We have endeavoured to obtain information as to the present 
extent and scientific value, as well as facts regarding the history 
of the formation of Mr. Cuming^s remarkable collection, and 
we have been favoured by the following letter on the subject 
from Prof. Owen, who was one of the trustees of Mr. Cuming^s 
museum during his absence in the Philippine Islands, and who 
has described the anatomy of some of the rarer animals of the 
shells in the Transactions of the Zoological Society. 
To Richard Taylor, Esq., F.L.S. S,c. 
My dear Sir, — I send agreeably with your desire the following 
sketch of the nature and extent of Mr. Hugh Cuming’s concholo- 
gical museum, and I can only regret that my time will not permit 
me to do more justice to a subject on which all naturalists, and 
those more especially who are engaged in the advancement of con- 
chology, and concerned in its important relations to other branches 
of science, must feel deejdy interested. 
The Memorial on the Cumingian Collection of Shells, signed by 
naturalists, geologists and comparative anatomists, which was com- 
municated to the Trustees of the British Museum, on the occasion 
of the proposition for the sale of the collection made by Mr. Cuming 
in 1846, well described its im])ortant scientific value and applica- 
tions. 
At present the collection contains upwards of 19,000 species or 
well-marked varieties ; and these are re])resented by about 60,000 
specimens. Not only is every specimen entire, but choice and perfect 
of its kind, as respects form, colour, texture and other characters 
that give it value in the eyes of the practised shell-collector. 
In affirming from my own personal knowledge, and from authentic 
sources of information, that no public collection in Europe possesses 
one-half the number of species of shells that are now in the Cu- 
mingian collection — one-third the number would be the correct state- 
ment as regards the national museums in Paris and Vienna — you 
may judge of the vast proportion of rarities and unique specimens 
possessed by Mr. Cuming. It is this which has given him for some 
years past the command, so to speak, of all the conchological cabi- 
nets in Europe. He is better known, and his labours more truly 
and generally appreciated, in any city or town in Europe having a 
public natural- history museum and its zoological professor, than in 
busy London. 
Mr. Cuming, in his annual visits to the continent, carries with 
him the inferior dujfiicates of his rarities, representing species, with 
the sight of which the eyes of the foreign naturalist are gladdened 
for the first time. They open their treasures to him in return, and 
from most of the collections of Europe Mr. Cuming has borne away 
