of distinguishing Species and Higher Groups. 195 



may be found in the, at least, apparent diversity of views 

 which exist in relation to the snbject that I have announced. 



On the one side Conchologists are said to have no regard 

 to the inhabitants of the shells which they admire ; on the 

 other hand a heterogeneous class of writers publish their own 

 opposite opinion that shells are of no more consequence in 

 Natural History than the fur of quadrupeds, or even the cloth- 

 ing or houses of men. 



We cannot avoid an expression of dislike to the phrase, 

 " inhabitants of shells," as applied in science to Mollusca. 

 There would be an obvious propriety in it, if applied to hermit 

 crabs (Paguridse,) since they have no organic connection with 

 the shells which they occupy. But there is such a connec- 

 tion between the soft parts and the shell of a Mollusca, that 

 neither alone constitutes an individual being, but the whole 

 together constitutes one animal. It would be no more absurd, 

 in scientific language, to denominate birds the inhabitants of 

 feathers, and mammals the inhabitants of fur or wool, &c. 

 The term, " the animal," which is frequently used for the soft 

 parts only, is liable to the same objection, — that these parts 

 alone do not constitute an animal. "We fully admit, however, 

 the propriety of these terms as figurative language, and would 

 therefore by no means entirely discard them. 



A writer in the Zoological Journal of London has consid- 

 ered the question, whether the shell or "the animal" is en- 

 titled to the name of the species, and suggests that two names 

 are necessary I This would be like giving one name to the 

 bones and another to the flesh of a quadruped. But whether 

 we call a skeleton a mammoth, or apply a specific name to a 

 shell, there is no danger of being misunderstood : we neither 

 intend to give the shell the monopoly of its name, nor to say 

 that the mammoth never had any " soft parts." In organic 

 nature, individuality resides in the whole being only, and it is 

 the specific itidividualitij to which the name belongs. 



