o24 SYSTEMS OF CONCHOLOGY. 



affinity in tlie writings of Miiller, or even in the " Systema 

 Natura) ;" as it is certain he yielded himself to the influence 

 of Linnaeus in retaining the Balani and Anatifae in the class. 



Lamarck, already eminent amongst botanists, was at this 

 time elected professor of zoology to the Museum of Natural 

 History, and immediately began his efforts to reform the 

 classification of the animals whose history it was his duty to 

 expound. He is considered by his countrymen to have pos- 

 sessed the talent for method in a higher degree than any 

 naturalist saving Linneeus ; and there appears to be some 

 justness in this appreciation of his character. His systema- 

 tical essays are always based on accurate and extensive 

 knowledge ; and the foundations of his divisions are laid on 

 characters of organization which must influence more or less 

 the animal's economy. These divisions are, at the same time, 

 uniformily defined with remarkable precision and neatness, 

 so as to be well adapted to the purposes of the nomencla- 

 turist. A hap23y example of this is found in his primary 

 division of the animal kingdom into vertebrate and inver- 

 tebrate animals, — terms so well chosen that they have become 

 household words with us all, displacing from scientific no- 

 menclature their Aristotelian equivalents, sanguineous and 

 exsanguineous, which the progress of physiology had shown 

 to be no longer applicable. 



In his first essay, of the date of 1799, Lamarck did not 

 deviate from his predecessors in any thing essential. He 

 divided the order Testacea into univalve, bivalve, and multi- 

 valve shells. The univalves were either unilocular or multi- 

 locular ; the bivalves were irregular or regular ; and the 

 multivalves were as Linna3us left them. But in 1804 a new 

 edition of his method bore very evident marks of Cuvier's 

 influence upon its author. The method is as foUov/s : 



MOLLUSCA. 

 I. Cephalous Mollusca. 



Swimmers — Gen. : Sepia, Loligo, Octoj^us, 

 Lernaea, Firola, Clio. 

 Tyr , ; Gasteropods — Gen. : Laplysia, Dolabella, 



Bulhea, Tethys, Limax, Sigaretus, On- 

 chydium, Tritonia, Doris, Pliyllidia, Chi- 

 ton. 

 Testaceous. 



1. Shell univalve iniiloculari Gen.: Patella, Fissurella, 

 not spiral covering the- Emarginula, Concholepas, 

 animal ( Crepidula, Calyptra?a. 



