BibliograpJiical Notices. 381 



The following closing words of volume iv. are well worth quoting, 

 since the issue of plates to illustrate the work was alone required to 

 make it take its place as the standard authority ou the British Mol- 

 lusca. We trust that no pains will be spared in the execution of 

 these drawings. The generic illustrations which have been published 

 in the earlier volumes have in many instances fallen short of what 

 they might have been ; and even in the present volume, some of the 

 engravings (for example, the figures of plate 7) are hardly worthy of 

 that accurate artist, jNIr. G. B. Sowerby : — 



" And now, good reader, I should be sorry if you have complained 

 of my being too voluminous. I never professed to make this a 

 manual ; nor have I yet quite done. Let me remind you of the 

 advice given by Seneca (De Ira, lib. iii. c. 31. §3), 'Age potius 

 gratias pro his qure accepisti : reliqua expecta, et nondum plenum 

 te esse gaude. Inter voluptates est, superesse quod speres.' 



"The next volume will complete the work, and contain an account 

 of the few remaining Pleurobranchiata, the Nudibranchs (by Mr, 

 Alder), the marine Pulmonobranchs, the Pteropods, and the Cephalo- 

 pods, a Sup])lement to the volumes already published, and other 

 useful matter, besides plates (plain and coloured) by Mr. Sowerby, 

 to represent all the species and remarkable varieties of British shells. 

 Most of these plates are engraved, and the colouring is in progress." 



Mind in Nature ; or, the Origin ofLife and the Mode of Develop- 

 ment of Aiiimals. By Henry James-Clark, A.B., B.S., Ad- 

 junct Professor of Zoology in Harvard University, Cambridge, 

 Mass., &c. Illustrated; pp. v-3].t. D. Appleton & Co., New 

 York. 1865. 



This work has scarcely met with the attention, in this country, 

 which it seems tp deserve. It contains much interesting information 

 respecting the lower animals, which is expressed in a clear and 

 pleasing style. 



The Origin of Life is considered in the first five chapters, in the 

 course of which the author adduces some experiments in defence of 

 the hypothesis of spontaneous generation, and propounds his theory 

 of the egg, — viz. that it is a "bipolar animal,''^ .... " a globular 

 accretion of two kinds of fluids, albumen and oil, which are always 

 situated at opposite sides or poles,'''' and separated more or less dis- 

 tinctly from each other. Amongst the most remarkable modes by 

 which an individual existence arises cited, is the derivation of vibrio- 

 form bodies from the fibres of decomposing muscular and tendinous 

 tissue. His assertion, at page 101, that "human digestion makes 

 human flesh out of the decomposed, meat of many different kinds of 

 animals," requires some qualification, since the word decomposition 

 is employed in the same paragraph somewhat in the sense of putres- 

 cence. The meaning of the word is wrested for the defence of 

 spontaneous generation. 



The speciality of the second part is his treatment of the Protozoa. 

 " The tgpe of this division," lie writes, " is found in its relation to 



