CLASSIFICATION. 3 



I may mention that these remarks were scarcely dry, when 

 I received from Exmouth a pine log full of magnificent Teredo 

 megotara alive, which species I had not seen for thirty years, 

 and enabled me to supply the anatomy of the Teredines. 

 And in 1852 I reaped a splendid crop of rare desiderata, 

 which I had almost despaired of. The gleanings of the 

 harvest still remain, and will amply repay the labours of the 

 energetic naturalist. 



We have given no figures of the animals or shells, and only 

 occasionally in the text, short notices of the hard parts ; but 

 we have supplied this want, by referring to the excellent and 

 recently published 'British Mollusca/ by Professor Forbes 

 and Mr. Hanley, of which we will observe, that no mala- 

 cologist can dispense with this vade mecum, wherein will be 

 found delineations, and copious descriptions of the shells of 

 every animal mentioned in our work, with figures of many 

 typical animals, and we have added references to those British 

 species that have escaped our researches. Sir Walter Scott 

 tells us, that nature having denied Mr. Croftangry a pencil, 

 he endeavoured to make words answer the purpose of delinea- 

 tion ; I almost think, though fancy may be equally expansive 

 in both cases, that if one has any general knowledge of the 

 subject, a particular description of any of the variously formed 

 objects of nature would ensure as good a distinctive resem- 

 blance as if drawn pictorially from life ; the only exception is 

 the human race, in which nature having arrived at the ex- 

 treme limits of animal composition, illustrated by there being 

 absolutely the same number and quality of the external organs 

 in every tribe, the chef-d'oeuvre of her works may, perhaps, 

 be better expressed by portrait than by description ; but all 

 the other objects of animated nature, even in the same divi- 

 sion, differ so exceedingly from each other, for example, in the 

 present case, the Mollusca, that descriptive notes may possibly 

 be preferable to artistical representation. 



B 2 



