182 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



I mprely draw attention to it in order to show how mnch may he 

 done hy means of the glyptic and graphic methods to iUustrate our 

 suhject. 



Mr. 11. Bullen jS^ewton, some time since, prepared an exhaustive 

 list of the British Eocene Mollusca, with especial reference to the 

 remarkable collection formed by the late Mr. Frederick E. Edwards. 

 ]\Ir. Newton found the number of new and undescribed forms in 

 our Eocene beds was far larger than had been estimated, but he 

 hopes in co-operation with our Treasiirer, Mr. G. F. Harris, to achieve 

 thedr gradual description. A beginning has already been made in our 

 "Proceedings," and, if persevered in, it will be the means of rendei'ing 

 our publications of the highest value to workers both in recent and in 

 fossil shells. 



Three years ago Messrs. G. F. Harris and H. W. Burrows completed 

 the publication of an extremely useful and valuable memoir on the 

 Eocene and Oligoccne beds of tlie Paris Basin (issued by the Geolo- 

 gists' Association 2;3rd Sept., 1891, pp. 138). Besides an account of 

 the various localities visited by the authors they give careful lists, with 

 horizons of 3,5.55 species of Molhisca and an excellent geological map. 

 For some time past these gentlemen have assisted in my Depart- 

 ment in naming and arranging the famous Collection of French 

 Tertiary Mollusca formed by M. Deshayes, to which they have also 

 lately added from their own cabinets no fewer than 2,400 desiderated 

 specimens ; their labours have now been extended to our Australian 

 Tertiary Mollusca, which rival in beauty those from European 

 localities. 



Permit me here to allude to one of the troubles which we older 

 Natui'alists have to overcome, namely, the constant kaleidoscopic 

 change of Nomenclature which is taking place in Biology. More 

 especially is this so, when (what Dr. Elliott Cones in America calls) 

 the ''splitters" get the better of the "lumpers." This love of 

 change extends, not only to alterations of generic names, which are 

 endless, but also to classes, orders, and families, so that one stands 

 like a traveller who revisits his native city after a long absence, and 

 finds all the old familiar houses removed or rebuilt, and even the 

 names of the streets changed, and the old inhabitants dead and 

 replaced by strangers. These things, however, are the natural out- 

 come of progress and also the result of that youthful energy which 

 impels its possessors, like the Athenians in the days of St. Paul, to 

 spend most of their time in seeing or hearing of some new thing. But 

 Nomenclature, let me urge, is not the sum and substance of our work 

 as Malacologists, important though it be. If we would aspire to rank 

 as priests in the temple which we dedicate to Nature, we should 

 have a real and living knowledge of our subject, not a mere know- 

 ledge of its synonymy. Moreover, wo must make our subject clear, 

 interesting, attractive, and intelligible to the neophyte, and not chill 

 him with endless verbiage. 



Turning now to the history of Thalatology, or the study of the sea 

 and its inhabitants, to which we, as Malacologists, must always attach 



