Bibliographical Notices. 65 
Norway, for the express purpose of examining public and private 
collections of European shells, and especially the types of species 
described by O. F. Miller and subsequent writers on Scandinavian 
conchology. Every naturalist will appreciate the advantage of such 
an undertaking, being aware that our own fauna and flora cannot 
be properly studied apart from that of the rest of Europe. These 
preliminary remarks are offered to explain the cause of delay in the 
appearance of the present volume, and likewise to express my grateful 
acknowledgments for the kind welcome and aid which I received 
from all the le@ding zoologists in the countries above mentioned.” 
Such are Mr. Jeffreys’s opening words in the preface to the second 
volume of ‘ British Conchology,’ which we have the pleasure of in- 
troducing to our readers. The work which the author has under- 
taken is to him a labour of love, and he is determined to spare neither 
trouble nor expense in order to make it a complete history of the 
Mollusca of Great Britain. There is no cause to regret the interval 
of two years which has elapsed between the publication of the first 
and second volumes. It is evident that that time has been profitably 
spent in the accumulation of additional knowledge respecting the 
shells of our coast; and as we have read we have not failed to re- 
cognize repeated instances of the value of the results of the author’s 
visit to Scandinavia and his extended dredging in the deep waters of 
the Shetland Seas. 
The volume before us embraces the Brachiopoda (here rightly 
separated as a distinct class from the Conchifera) and the Conchi- 
fera from Anomia to Scrobicularia, and contains descriptions of 130 
species. At the present rate of progress, therefore, we must expect 
that at least two more volumes will be required to complete the work. 
The generic and specific descriptions are worked out with great care, 
and the latter will be found to be both more methodical in arrange- 
ment and more concise and clear in definition than those of Forbes 
and Hanley. The descriptions in this latter work labour under the 
disadvantage of being too long; and thus, from the prolixity with 
which minor and comparatively unimportant details are enumerated, 
the student often finds himself perplexed to discover the chief cha- 
racteristics which distinguish the species from its allies. 
The revised list of the portion of the British Mollusca here de- 
scribed shows considerable diversity from that presented to us, ten 
years since, by the authors of the ‘ British Mollusca.’ In the interval, 
Mr. Jeffreys has from time to time published in our pages papers 
entitled “Gleanings in British Conchology.”” In these papers were 
first made known as British many of the species which he now more 
fully describes in his present work. He has acted wisely, however, 
in reconsidering the grounds upon which he inserted many so-called 
species in those ‘‘ Gleanings,” and in reducing them again to the 
level of varieties; but we venture to think that, having in some instances 
previously gone to one extreme in species-splitting, he is now showing 
a tendency to the opposite extreme in striking out of our fauna 
several well-marked specific forms. The following lists will show the 
Amn, & Mag. N. Hist, Ser. 3. Vol. xiv. 5 
