I enjoyed a rare treat last night, free mulled wine and mince pies at Aberdeen University's new library. It was all part of a reception to launch a new, richly illustrated book, The Library and Archive Collections of the University of Aberdeen, an Introduction and Description, designed to introduce readers to the treasures of the University's remarkable historic collections. The 360 page book traces the history of the collections over the last 500 years, from 1st century Papyri to 21st century artists' books, with important and unique Mediaeval and renaissance manuscripts, early printed books and a superb collection of material focused on the Jacobite risings and the Stuart Dynasty.

I had been allocated 2 whole pages for a short essay on Auserlesene Schnecken, Muscheln und anre Schaalthiere (Selected gastropods, bivalves and other shellfish), the work of Franz Michael Regenfuss, published in Copenhagen in 1758.

This rare and exquisitely illustrated royal folio is from a time when collecting shells and other natural history curiosities was a popular entertainment for the rich and educated. The book contains 145 detailed and highly accurate engravings of molluscan shells, arranged in 12 plates, all of them the work of Franz Regenfuss who was born in Nuremberg in 1713 and who worked as engraver to Frederic V King of Denmark and Norway from 1754 to his death in 1780. After printing, the engravings were skilfully hand-coloured by Regenfuss' wife, Margaretha Ludwig. Regenfuss had no involvement in the accompanying text, written by several authors and printed in French and German.

The volume deals with 103 taxa, 74 gastropods and 29 bivalves, all but 1 marine, and in the main from the Far East but with some from the West Indies, Cape of Good Hope and Northern Europe. The placing of the shells on the plates has nothing to do with classification and everything to do with pleasing the eye, with most plates containing both gastropods and bivalves from unrelated groups. A notable feature is that many, but not all, of the specimens are named using the, then revolutionary, binomial system developed by Carl Linnaeus just a few years earlier, in 1753, and which we still use to the present time.

The title refers to anre Schaalthiere (other shellfish), presumably crabs and other crustaceans, but they do not feature at all in the book and were probably intended for a second unpublished volume, which Regenfuss began, but never completed. The Aberdeen volume was donated to the Marischal Library by Sir William Fordyce, London physician and Rector of Marischal College from 1790 to 1792.

The shells are best appreciated in their zoomified form.