IN^OTICES AND REVIEWS OF NEW WORKS. 



BY GEORGE W. TRYON, JR. 



I.— AMERICAN. 



Land and Fresh Water Shells of North America. Part 2. Pulmo- 

 nata, Limnophila and Thalassophila. By Wm. G. Binney. Smithaouian 

 Miscellaneous Collections. 8vo. Washington, 1865. 



This work, which professes to monograph all the species of 

 Auriculidge, Limn?eid»e, and SiphonariidfB inhabiting the United 

 States, published prior to 1864, forms a volume of 161 pages, 

 illustrated by over 250 excellent wood engravings, made from 

 drawings from nature, by the experienced pencil of Mr. Edw. . 

 S. Morse. 



The exceeding conservatism which characterizes all of Mr. 

 Binney's writings, in the present instance is greatly to be de- 

 plored, as many perfectly good species, acknowledged to be such 

 by all other American conchologists who have studied our fresh 

 water shells, are degraded from that rank to synonyms only. It 

 must be conceded to Mr. Binney's fairness in his work that he 

 has been quite as conservative in his study of new forms as of 

 those already described : thus, he leaves in Physa heterostrojiha 

 all the various species from every section of the country, which, 

 labelled by collectors under that convenient all-embracing name, 

 have passed through his hands, instead of anticipating Mr. Isaac 

 Lea and myself in the description of them. A naturalist who 

 confounds (and in the name and under the authority of the 

 Smithsonian Institution) twenty to thirty species in one, can 

 scarcely be considered a safe exponent of the subject, particu- 

 larly for that class of conchologists for whom this book is princi- 

 pally designed — the beginners in the science. In order to cor- 

 rect as nearly as possible the false impressions which may be 

 given by this work to such persons, we will briefly rectify what 

 we conceive to be its more glaring errors. (Practised concholo- 



