Having much to do, but lacking the energy to do it, I was playing around
with a website which allows one to simultaneously search the text of a
thousand classical books for specific words.  I found the following
references to our illustrious hobby.  Unfortunately, most of the writers
seem to view conchology as somewhat less than illustrious . . .

in Hard Cash by Charles Reade:
The men and women of this benighted nashin have an ear for anything,
provided it matters nothing: talk Jology, Conchology, Entomology,
Theology, Meteorology, Astronomy, Deuteronomy, Botheronomy, or
Boshology, and one is listened to with rivirence, because these are all
far-off things in fogs.

in Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott:
Tadpoles don't live in salt water, my son, and if you mean conchology,
you'd better say so.

in Middlemarch by George Eliot:
Why, you might take to some light study: conchology, now: I always think
that must be a light study.

in Old Maid by Honore de Balzac:
You will find in the most out-of-the way villages human mollusks,
creatures apparently dead, who  have passions for lepidoptera or for conchology.

Little do they know (hehe).

If you would like to try the same site, it is:

http://www.concordance.com/globalwordsearch.htm

Paul M.