Mr. Westwood on the Affinities of Clinidium. 218 
branch of science may be observed in the title of a new work recently 
advertised by Mr. Children and Mr. Gray, which professes to be “ An 
Introduction to the Study of Recent and Fossil Shells, and the Animals 
which inhabit them,”’ a title which clearly cannot be verified by the work 
itself, in relation to fossil shells. 
But enough has been said to shew the entirely unsettled state both of 
the opinions and language of recent authors on shells and their inhabitants, 
and to evince the necessity of establishing some more precise and definite 
system of conchology, upon principles which, if shells are still to be 
considered worth preserving and receiving names, should be immediately 
derived from the shells themselves. 
It is well known that a system of conchology, or a method of classing 
shells, has been proposed by M. de Blainville, but adapted in some de- 
gree to the classification of the animals. He has, however, introduced 
two distinctive characters, the operculum and the epidermis, both of 
which, from the unfrequency of their continuance with the shell, must 
generally become unavailable. There has also been a purely concholo- 
gical work produced by a Danish naturalist, Mr. Schumacher, which has 
no reference to the mol/uscous animals. An analysis of this work 
would not render the pages of the Zoological Journal less generally inte- 
resting than they are at present, and might afford some useful hints to 
Mr. Sowerby in preparing his promised work on the Species of Shells. 
a rr 
Art. XXXIII. On the Affinities of the Genus Clinidium of 
Kirsy. By J.O. Westwoon, Esg., F.L.S., Sc. 
WHEN we contemplate the immense number of insects already sup- 
posed to be contained in our cabinets, estimated by Mr, MacLeay to 
amount at least to 100,000, and when we are aware that it is the opinion 
of some eminent authors that this number is but one-fourth part of the 
Species actually in existence, (an opinion which appears to be well 
founded, from the number of new species which the arrival of every col- 
lection adds to our store,) the remarks which the entomologist occasionally 
