180 PROCEEDINGS OF THE MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETr. 



Althoup,'h the production of such a large amount of good work 

 ■would amply suiHce to stiuup its author as a Malacologist of the 

 first rank, yet Dr. Fischer's highest cliuni to our attention is the 

 publieatiim of his chef d^ocuvre, the "Manuel de Conchyliologie " 

 (1880-87). Struck by the method of arrangement and general 

 excellence of Dr. S. P. Woodward's " Manual of the Mollusca " 

 (1851-56), Fischer at first essayed to bring out a new and revised 

 French edition of that work, rendered necessary through the lapse 

 of time and the progress of discovery since its first publication ; but he 

 found the task involved practically the re-writing of the whole, the 

 ultimate result being the production of the great work we have alluded 

 to. It is easy to see, by an examination of the Manual, that its author 

 was anxious to perpetuate the memory of Dr. S. P. Woodward, of whom 

 he was a most earnest and ai'dent disciple. He not only reproduced 

 the greater part of the text of Woodward's "Manual," but also his 

 map of the provinces and all his figures. Since imitation is said to 

 be the " sincerest form of flattery," English Malacologists have every 

 reason to be proud of Dr. Paul Fischer's tribute to the memory of 

 Dr. S. P. Woodward. 



Turning for a moment to the Institution to which I have the 

 honour to belong, let me draw attention to one of the many interesting 

 features of our British Museum of Natural Histoiy in Cromwell Road, 

 viz. the commencement in Bay J^o. 7 of the Central Hall, or " Index 

 Museum," of a most instructive object text-book of Malacology, 

 prepared, at the request of Sir William Flower, the Director, by our 

 Editor, Mr. B. B. Woodward, in which, by the judicious selection of 

 some of the specimens and the preparation by marking or cutting of 

 others, and aided also by excellent descriptive labels, the student may 

 read, as in the open pages of a finely-illustrated book, "the story of 

 the shell." 



There is an interesting series to show the forms of hinge in the 

 Bivalve Mollusca, giving all the gi'adations from shells like Mec/alodoHy 

 Cijrena, Tricjonia, and Ci/prina, with complex, powerful, and well- 

 developed hinge-teeth, to forms like Zutraria, Mi/a, and Ostrea, with 

 simple, extremely small, or quite obsolete teeth. The variations in 

 shape of the muscular impressions or scars and the pallial border in 

 the Bivalve shell are displayed in another group of specimens. These 

 are carefully coloured so as to mark out tlie scars of the anterior and 

 ])osterior adductor muscles, the pedal muscle, etc. 



The variations in external form, within the limits of a single genus 

 of Bivalves, are well illustrated by a series of examples of Unio 

 from the rivers of N. America, comprising 34 species selected to 

 show remarkable modifications. I believe Dr. Lea, in America, 

 has described over 300 so-called species of N. American Unios. 

 Yet another series exhibits the variations in a single species of 

 Gastropod, Paludomus loricatus, common in the mountain streams of 

 Ceylon, that, on account of its tendency to vary, had been split up 

 into no less than 24 distinct species. The specimens selected as 

 illustrating variation in form, colour, growth, and construction in 

 shells arc extremelv well chosen and most instrut'tive. 



