188 Dr. M axon's ami Mr. Rackett's 
measure compensating for imperfections in the descriptive part. 
It is a work that deserves to be more generally known than it 
seems hitherto to have been in this country; and as the figures 
are both original and accurate, they ought to be more commonly 
quoted. 
Among the Mem. Etrang. de I* Acad, des Sciences we find an ex- 
cellent account of Mytilus lithophagm, written by 
FOUGEROUX. 
This account, is illustrated by a beautiful plate, which exhibits 
very accurately the nidus y shell, and structure of the animal. 
The 9th volume of this same work contains a memoir by 
DE LA FAILLE, 
" sur VQrigine des Macreuses" in which a full refutation is given 
of the strange story of the Barnacle Goose, and there is a large 
figure of the well-known shell originally supposed to produce it. 
This was a subject on which it was scarcely worth while for a 
writer of so late a period to employ any pains. 
GEOFFROY 
merits mention among writers on the Testacea for his " Trait 6 som~ 
maire des Coquilles taut Jluviatiles que terrestres qui se trouxxnt aux 
Environs de Paris." The number of species described is forty-six, 
which are included in seven genera ; and the system is the author's 
own, though not materially different from that of Linnaeus, ex- 
cept that more attention is paid to the animal itself than in the 
works of the latter. The specific descriptions are given in Latin, 
but the bulk of the work is in the French language. An artist of 
the name of DUCHESNE published three plates of Fresh-water 
and Land Shells, which form a good accompaniment to these 
descriptions 
