REVIEWS. 109 



space will not permit us to enter into details, or to write a history of all 

 that has been said and done for conchology or malacology, from the time 

 that Aristotle, with unwearied industry, and ever-to-be-admired ingenuity, 

 tracked out for himself a path in this neglected desert, down to our days, 

 when this desert has become a fruitful field, and names like Cuvier, 

 and Blainville, Milne-Edwards, Miiller, Owen, and our ever-to-be-lamented, 

 but never-to-be-forgotten, Forbes, with a whole host of others, stand like 

 beacon-lights, showing us the broad, distinct track which each and all have 

 left behind them, some few shining steadily, with an enduring brightness 

 while other of the lights but flicker and die ; and others still shine, like 

 the light-house on a barren rock, but to show us where danger lies, and to 

 warn us off the coast. For, truly, to again quote from Adanson, the details 

 of the study is, by no means, childish play ; far from it ; but the way 

 thereto is a thorny one, and beset with much difficulty. 



In our opinion, the fate of malacologists and conchologists must be 

 very like, indeed. Finding fault, as they almost invariably do, with the 

 systems of their predecessors, they found some new one of their own, which, 

 in its turn, shall, perchance, be stigmatized by some fresh candidate for 

 the withering laurel, as so much ingenious trifling, supposing he gives it no 

 harder name. 



Now, it must be well known to our readers that, since the year 1757, 

 when the " History of the Shell-fish of Senegal" was published, and even 

 before that date, naturalists, at least the major part of them, have, in 

 the study of shells and their inhabitants, fallen into one or the other of two 

 extremes by either describing the shell as if it had no inhabitant, or else 

 describing that inhabitant as if it had no house of its own wherein to live 

 in ; and as each successive naturalist glides slowly into either of them, he 

 is called (as in the former case) a conchologist, or (as in the latter) a mala- 

 cologist. To the latter of these divisions the author of this volume 

 most unquestionably belongs ; one extract will prove this, if it be not 

 already known. Under the head of Littorina rudis, in page 342, we find 

 the following synonymic list : 



L. patula, Brit. Moll., iii., p. 36. 



L. tenebrosa, Brit. Moll., iii., p. 39. 



L. saxatilis, Brit. Moll., iii., p. 43. 



L. fabalis, Brit. Moll., iii., p. 49. 



L. palliata, Brit. Moll., iii., p. 51. 



L. gonaria, L. nidissima, L. jugosa, L. neglecta, Auct. 



and the following reason why it is given " To describe the above, 

 which are the pseudo- species of authors, would be to say, that the organs 

 of all, both external and internal, do not vary in the slightest degree in 



