HISTORY AND PROGRESS 



OF 



CONCHOLOGY 



iHE science of Conchology comprehends the natural history and 

 arrangement of the Lepades and Conchiferous Mollusca, which are 

 soft inarticulated animals, inhabiting or producing testaceous shells, and 

 the most highly organized of the Invertebrata, or animals without 

 vertebra. 



By the term Conchology, we mean to imply the history and classifica- 

 tion of the shell, in connexion with the physiology of its animal. The 

 word Ko-yxoc, from which it is derived, signifies equally a shell or a shell- 

 fish ; and the word KoyyvXiov, from which the French naturalists obtain 

 the term " Conchiliologie," has precisely the same signification — " le mot 

 veut dire, non pas une coquille settlement, mais I'animal qui en est revdtu," 

 (De Blainville.) 



Although Aristotle and Pliny have presented a systematic arrange- 

 ment of these animals under the common title of Exsanyuinea, or ani- 

 mals without blood, yet the first attempt towards a complete system of 

 Conchology was made by Daniel Major, a Professor of Medicine in the 

 University of Kiel, in the year 1675, when the study of this science 

 began to assume a new form, and was followed with considerable zeal 

 by several eminent naturalists. Lister, Rumphius, Gualter, Argenville, 

 Klein and Adanson successively contributed to its advancement ; and in 

 1750 a complete though simple arrangement was established by Lin- 

 naeus in his ' Systema Natura?,' illustrated in a voluminous work by 



VOL. I. B 





