10 SHELLS AND SHELL-FISH. PART I. 



were prosecuting their researches with indefatigable 

 industry ; while Bruguiere, and subsequently Lamarck, 

 were no less occupied in describing and arranging the 

 Testacea; meantime^ faint attempts, in the shape of In- 

 troductionSj to keep alive Linnaean conchology, were all 

 that appeared in England on this subject. The labours 

 of Bruguiere were unfortunately terminated prematurely 

 by deaths but those of his illustrious friend Lamarck 

 were continued up to within these few years. His 

 masterly and incomparable work, wherein aU his labours 

 on the invertebrated animals are concentrated, are too 

 well known to be expatiated upon in this place, since it 

 is in the hands, or should be, of almost every zoologist 

 who studies those classes. The investigations of Poli, 

 even more elaborate than those of Cuvier, have been 

 given to the world more slowly, and in such an expen- 

 sive form, as to deprive them of half their utility.* 

 Not so with those of the celebrated Cuvier. The 

 Regne Animal, a book accessible to all purchasers, con- 

 tains the essence of all his labours on the Mollusca, 

 but, unfortunately, so much abridged, that the student 

 is frequently more perplexed, than satisfied, on the 

 point he is searching for. His more detailed memoirs 

 are scattered through innumerable volumes of foreign 

 transactions, where they lie completely hidden from 

 every-day reference, although their intrinsic and per- 

 manent value would fully warrant their being collected 

 and printed in a cheap volume.f In estimating the 

 merits of these three great men, — Poli, Cuvier, and La- 

 marck, — in regard to their arrangement of the testaceous 

 Mollusca, it may be stated, that the first confined his 

 system entirely to the animal, giving to it a difi^erent 

 name to that of the shell ; so that, if the animals of two 

 conchological genera (as Avicula and Lima^ were nearly 



* Poll Testacea Utriusque Sicilia', eorumque Historia et Anatomia, 

 2 vols, royal folio. Parma', 1790 — 5. 



A Supplement, by Stephaiius della Chiaje, forming another volume, 

 was published at Naples in 1S.')3. 



f A few copies of these 3/e?«o»rs, with their plates, were struck ofT se- 

 parately, and published in one 4to. volume, Paris, 1817 ; but this is now 

 become so rare as to be unprocurable, excepting hy chance. 



