60 Transactions of the Society, 



of d'Orbigny by the daily use which they make of his work." ^ 

 Whilst it was in progress, he conceived the vaster idea of the 

 " Paleontologie Universelle " — as Gaudry says, " his vision needed 

 vast horizons " - — and not content with this he undertook the 

 " Histoire des MoUusques vivauts et fossiles," ^ and announced a 

 " Cours de Paleontologie generale et appliquee." This programme, 

 which may well be described as staggering, was, in fact, fantastic 

 and chimerical. Perhaps fortunately for him, in the year 1844 

 F. J. Pictet published the first volume of his " Traite Elementaire 

 de Paleontologie," ^ which alarmed d'Orbigny 's publishers, and the 

 " Cours de Paleontologie Generale " (which was partly in print) 

 was abandoned, and the " Cours Elementaire " was substituted 

 for it. The publication of the "Paleontologie Universelle _ des 

 Coquilles et des MoUusques" was started in 1845, and d'Orbigny 

 was extremely annoyed when Quenstedt in a review stated that 

 it was impossible for a single man to undertake so vast a work. 

 However, several parts were published when the upheaval caused 

 by the Ptevolution of 1848 put a stop to this also. His catalogue of 

 species, however, was practically complete, and as the " Prodrome " 

 it became welded with the " Cours Elementaire " in the manner 

 with which we are familiar.^ The " Prodrome " in its familiar 

 form contains over 18,000 species arranged in stratigraphical order 

 (see infra, pp. 61, 62), and giving 40,000 names in the synonymies.^ 



^ XXI., p. 441. D'Orbigny's " Paleontologie Fran(;aise " and its fate may be 

 compared with Goldfuss and ]\Iuuster's " Petrefacta Germanise," which w£|,s 

 similarly designed to describe and illustrate all the fossil Invertebrata of Germany, 

 but it had to be abandoned when the Sponges, Corals, Crinoids, Echinoderms, and 

 a small part of the MoUusca had been dealt with. Three large folio volumes 

 were irablished at Dusseldorf between 1822 and 1844, of which a second edition 

 was issued at Leipzig from 1862-66. 



- XVI., p. 833. 



* Of this work, from the first volume of which, published in 1845, I have 

 gathered a few facts (Bibl. XI.), only a small portion was issued. The first 

 volume consisted of 240 pages, and was illustrated by sixteen lithographic plates 

 exquisitely drawn and coloured by hand. The final form was a volume contain- 

 ing these pages and a further 365, making a single volume of 605 pages, which 

 takes the MoUusca down to the end of the Cephalopoda. He tells us (on p. 9) 

 that he was writing upon a basis of over 70,000 notes gathered from the works 

 of previous authors, besides his own collections of actual specimens. 



< P. J. Pictet : vol. i., 1844 ; ii., 1845 ; iii., 1846 ; iv., 1846. In vol. iv. (p. 213) 

 Foraminifera appear as Class ii. of the " Zoophytes ou Eayonnes," in the second 

 edition, 1853-57 (iv., p. 482), as Class iv. of the same. 



' XVI., p. 833 ; XXIL, p. 14 ; XV., pp. ix, xi. 



" It must, of course, be borne in mind that d'Orbigny's theories of classifica- 

 tion led to a bewildering multiplication of species. The Polyzoan Flustra pilosa 

 Linne is placed in four distinct genera according to its locus of attachment. 

 See on this and other instances XXI., p. 443. He fell iuto--or rather clung to— the 

 same error of classification by external appearance in his works on the Sponges 

 (see XXV., pp. 387 and 397). His work on the Bryozoa in the " Paleontologie 

 Fran(?aise," in which he described and illustrated 319 genera and 1929 species, is 

 so marred by this defect that it was to all intents and purposes ignored by 

 MacCoy, Hagenow, and Haime in their later and more authoritative works on'the 

 group. 



