Translated by Philip H. Nicklin. 105 
dent by your own plate, that the shells are exactly the same. I 
did specially point to your excellent anatomical researches on the 
animals of Naiades, and to that valuable Synoptical Table, on 
which you must have toiled so long and so hard, to enubilate the 
tremendous synonomy of those poor shells. Lastly, after some 
other analytical details, I ended my report as follows: 
“Tel est Messieurs, le bel ouvrage dont votre bibliothéque 
vient d’étre enrichie par la générosité d’un des plus laborieux de 
vos correspondans. Favorisé par toutes les circonstances qui fa- 
cilitent et encouragent les travaux du naturaliste, Mr. Lea vous 
donne l’espoir de voir les siens se multipliér chaque année, ainsi 
que ses titres a la reconnaissance des savans. T'émoignez-lui la 
votre, Messieurs, par l’organe de M. le Secretaire Général, car 
elle est bien méritée, et je le demande comme justice, a la Soci- 
été Linnéenne, en terminant ce rap u 
The paper of Mr. Des Moulins, though critical, is highly hon- 
orable to the labors of our countrymen, shewing that they are 
casting their mites into the general treasury of the world’s know- 
ledge. ‘The tribe of the Naiades is one of the most interesting of 
Nature’s families, dwelling in cells of pearl, adorned within, with 
all the hnes of flowers and brilliant rainbow dyes, jabunhicines ev- 
ery crystal Jake and running stream of this terraqueous globe. 
Man doth press with wandering foot no river bank, nor margin 
of translucent lake, but there a lovely Nais doth wait and woo 
his admiration ; 
—* candida Nai 
Pallentes violas et summa papavera”’ ji en Virg. Ecl. 2, 1. 46, 
This is more abundantly the case in our own youthful country, 
which, as Mr. Des Moulins justly observes, is “‘évidemment la 
patrie privilégiée des Unios et des Anodontes;” it is therefore 
not surprising that our young naturalists should have directed 
their researches with great enthusiasm towards that interesting 
branch of natural history, in the beautiful subjects of which our 
country abounds so much more than all other parts of the world, 
r. Des Moulins arrives at a just conclusion, when he says, “ Il 
vaut probablement mieux lacher encore les rénes, pendant quel- 
genus, and to use Lamarck’s name Iridina for the subgenus, in which are arranged 
all the species which conform to his eae Se hi It would not have been 
a to make two genera, because an are sup- 
poesd.2 —Translator’ 
nearly dentical.— i 
Vol. xx1, No. 1.—April-June, 1841. 14 
