do not drop any on your clothes, nor get it on your fingers. 
The latter you can dip in the water, but the clothing, if 
touched, will be instantly and permanently stained. When 
the shells are cleaned to your entire satisfaction—and only 
a few may require the acid treatment,—rub them over with 
a vestige of sperm oil. This brings up the colour better 
than anything else, and is incomparably better than varnish, 
which I advise you to leave severely alone. Applying var- 
nish to a shell is about as iniquitous a proceeding as daubing 
it over Chippendale or old oak furniture—a vandalism not 
to be dreamed of. 
And now a few words as to the description of the shells. 
I have not attempted to give any classification whatever, 
nor have many words of thunderous length been permitted 
to escape from the glossary; each species has a plain and, 
I hope, a fairly accurate account of it drawn up, which, 
taken with the illustrations, should make identification 
reasonably easy. 
You may readily surmise that there is a difficulty in 
the diversity of names when you come across one species 
which has no less than six different ones. Take, for in- 
stance, the Bathytoma Cheesemani; it is known as the 
Drillia Cheesemani, Pleurotoma Cheesemani, Surcula Cheese- 
mani, Bathytoma Zelandica, and the Pleurotoma Zelandica. 
Truly its name is Legion! But I have described it only 
under the name by which it is to be found in Henry Suter’s 
Manual of New Zealand Mollusca. This book, and the 
atlas of plates illustrating it, forms a most valuable work, 
and one that no true collector can dispense with. But, 
while recommending this work, it must be borne in mind 
that many of the names employed have since been found 
to be merely synonyms, and some of the species, and even 
genera, have been entirely deleted on purely anatomical 
grounds. A critical analysis of Suter’s Manual—particu- 
larly in regard to nomenclature—has been embodied in a 
paper written by Iredale, communicated to the New Zea- 
land Institute and published in the Transactions and Pro 
ceedings of that Society for the year 1914 in Vol. XLVII. 
This volume can be purchased by the public, but as the 
review in question contains neither figures nor descriptions, 
it will be understood that the Manual is, certainly in the 
first instance, the book to buy. Then, if the study of it 
prove sufficiently engrossing to make it desirable to adopt 
the newer or more correct nomenclature, the collector can 
take Iredale’s paper and make all the necessary alterations 
in the labelling and arrangement of his specimens. Speaking 
7 
Sea Shells 
of New Zealand 
