MOLLUSCA. 55 
structure, but the places which it frequents, and the food 
which it consumes. Hence these characters may be appli- 
ed with equal propriety in an artificial as in a natural me- 
thod. But what opinion would we form of that ornitholo- 
gist, who could readily inform us that the cormorant has 
fourteen tail feathers, and the shag only twelve, but who 
was ignorant of the haunts of these birds, their food, and the 
number of their young. We might prize him as a com- 
panion in surveying a museum, but he is alike a stranger to 
science and nature. 
Nor can we feel more respect for the student of mere 
shells. He may be able to tell us the number of whorls in 
a spiral univalve, or the form of the hinge in a bivalve ; but 
if he knows not the nature of the organs of respiration, di- 
gestion, and reproduction of the animal to which the shell 
belongs, and contentedly remains in this ignorance, he has 
yet to learn the value of method in natural history. He 
cherishes with mistaken fondness the maxim of Linnzeus, 
** Nomina nosse oportet qui rem scire velit,” while he over- 
looks a more important object, expressed in the motto of 
the Linnzan Society, “ Nature discere mores.” 
These remarks apply to the conchological labours of Lin- 
nzus and his followers, who have devoted their whole at- 
tention to the arrangements of the shells, without attending 
to the animals. We know that some of the admirers of 
the Swedish naturalist presume to say, “ But our great au- 
thor was not wholly inattentive to the creatures for which 
thé beautiful and endless diversified receptacles that he had 
characterised were designed. Among the generic marks 
was included the name of the molluscous inhabitant; or, 
where the animal differed from any which had a place in 
other parts of his system, he described it at length.” (Linn. 
