8 



SHELLS AND SHELL-FISH. PART I. 



crawls on its belly, at what, in comparison, is a good 

 round pace. The typical Testacea are all provided with 

 eyes, however small, and with feelers ; but the Echinidce 

 have none, properly so called ; they are, in fact, de- 

 cidedly lower in the scale of creation than the shell- 

 fish ; for, while the whole of the Radiata are destitute 

 of eyes, those of the Testacea, in the pre-eminently 

 typical division (the Zoophaga), and of the Cephalopoda, 

 are generally very perfect, and always present. This 

 accords exactly with what, from theory, we should have 

 supposed : that the Testacea, being nearest allied to the 

 typical Vertehrata, would consequently be more perfectly 

 organised ; while the Radiata, being cut off, as it were, 

 from the Vertehrata, by the intervention of the Arinu' 

 losa, become further removed from the great types of 

 animal perfection, and, consequently, exhibit an inferior 

 developement. The Testacea are, therefore, the most 

 perfect of all the Mollusca. 



(9-) Having now indicated, although with more 

 brevity that we could have wished, the relative station 

 of the testaceous Mollusca, both in regard to other 

 animals and their own class, we shall direct our chief 

 attention to the exposition of their natural and circular 

 arrangement. Although we so far concede to the popular 

 taste for conchology (as the '' art " of arranging shells 

 and other testaceous Ijodies is called) as to devote this 

 volume exclusively to the testaceous Mollusca, we can- 

 not sacrifice our conviction on the principles upon which 

 tliese animals should be studied, or fall into the common 

 method now in use of writing upon shells, independent 

 of all consideration for the animals by which they are 

 inhabited. To dignify any pursuit of this kind by the 

 name of Science, seems to us quite misplaced ; since it 

 would be hardly more absurd to classify birds by the 

 colour of their eggs, or beetles by the shape of their 

 wings, than to projjound an arrangement of shells, with- 

 out a paramount regard to the animals which they 

 cover. It is quite right that collectors of these elegant 

 objectSj who mix up with them shelly cases of insects 



