2 HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF CONCHOLOGY. 



Martini, continued by Chemnitz, and finally completed by Schubert and 

 Wagner. 



This system, however, although it embodied all that was at that time 

 known of the nature and habits of the animal, was based almost entirely 

 upon the relative characters of the shell ; and as new forms began to 

 appear, and more frequent opportunities occurred of investigating their 

 anatomy, it was found wholly inefficient ; it therefore became necessary 

 to propose a new and more extended classification. 



Bruguiere, De Montford, Cuvier and Lamarck were all variously oc- 

 cupied in reorganizing the arrangement and division of these animals ; 

 and in 1819 a complete and improved system of Conchology was pub- 

 lished by the last-named author in his ' Histoire Naturelle des Animaux 

 sans vertebres,' referring to the accurate figures already published in 

 the ' Encyclopedie M^thodique.' 



Since the time of Lamarck, considerable progress has been made in 

 the knowledge of the animal inhabitant, and the science is now begin- 

 ning to assume a more legitimate form. De Blainville in his ' Manuel 

 de Malacologie,' Sowerby in his ' Genera of Shells,' Deshayes in the 

 ' Encyclopedie Methodique,' Gray and other eminent living concholo- 

 gists, whose scattered memoirs and monographs have appeared from 

 time to time, together with the valuable labours of the American natu- 

 ralists, Lea, Say, Conrad, &c, as well as the important discoveries of 

 those enterprising travellers King, Belcher, Fremble, Cuming, Quoy, 

 and Gaimard, have all contributed more or less to its present advance- 

 ment ; though from the fact of the greater part of these animals having 

 been found in deep water, or at the tops of almost inaccessible mountains, 

 we are led to the conclusion that many species yet remain to be disco- 

 vered, and that we are still very far from the attainment of a proper 

 knowledge of them. 



The Lepades and Conchiferous Mollusca are exceedingly variable in 

 form, but are all characterized as being soft, fleshy, inarticulated animals, 

 entirely destitute of bone or cartilaginous skeleton ; they are enveloped in 

 a large slimy tunic or mantle, and mostly furnished with certain organs, 

 more or less perfectly developed, analogous to the head, foot and eye in 



