336 LITTORINIDA. 
of a class, so as to enable the student to deposit his objects 
with certainty in their natural position, and to distinguish 
them from others, however numerous, of the same family, by 
concise and well-defined specialties. If these rules were 
rigorously attended to, we should have fewer complaints of 
the almost impossibility of identifying many of the objects of 
natural history. The inconveniences that have arisen from 
the neglect of these precepts are so great and pressing, that I 
propose to attempt to point out their origin, and suggest a 
remedy as far as regards malacology and conchology, and to 
evidence and illustrate my arguments by references to the 
present state of certain groups of the Mollusca. If concho- 
logists are determined to form numerous species from the 
same animal because it happens to present certain shell-varia- 
tions, they must have their way, but malacologists will not 
concur with them in giving a dozen names to the same object. 
These gentlemen cannot escape having the phrase “ Dies do- 
cebit” verified ; the day of retractation will assuredly arrive ; 
it will therefore be better for the interests of science and their 
amour propre, at once to apply the remedy for this singular 
creative monomania, 
...*O medici mediam pertundite venam.” 
I apologise for my irreverent quotation, and trust I may claim 
for this once, 
euotavaters ‘¢ Liberius si 
Dixero quid, si forte jocosius, hoc mihi juris 
Cum venia dabis.”’ 
The practice I have just described is fraught with great 
detriment to the advancement of science, because in many 
instances it destroys every attempt at identity, and renders 
our books bulky and expensive, by the insertion of worthless 
synonyms, which have no existence as objects; and every 
writer feels obliged to notice all, because he has not the means 
of separating the rigorously-defined and well-founded species 
from the pseudo and unsubstantial articles. It results from 
this false position of the science, that when a student, with his 
object in hand, consults the authorities, he finds ten or twelve 
