CURRENT LITERATURE. 



It is hoped that all Malacologists will aid in making this Biblio- 

 graphy as complete and useful as possible. Writers, both at home and 

 abroad, arc especially asked to send in copies of their respective papers 

 for review to Wilfred Mark Webb, Holmesdale, Erentwocd, to whom 

 all communications should be addressed. 



MALACOLOGY IN GENERAL. 



Cooke, The Rev. A. H.— ]Molluscs. Shipley, A. E.—Brachiopods (Recent) 



Reed, F. R. C— Brachiopods (Fossil). The Cambridge Natural 



History, vol. iii. (April, 1895) London, Macmillan & Co., 8 vo., 535 pp. 



(Price 17s. nett) Mollusca pp. 1-459. 31 1 figures and 4 maps. 



The writing of a book on a zoological subject, which shall be useful to 



•' those who have not had a scientific training" f and at the same time to 



"serious students" f strikes one at the first as a task almost beyond the 



realms of realization, if not even, of expectation : for such an interest must be 



created, as to carry the novice merrily through those details that must 



otherwise seem dry to him, but in which, nevertheless, the old-hand 



intellectually revels. In order to bring about this state of affairs, the specialist 



must do what so many find to be an impos. ibility, and that is, to throw off 



that blind, unreasoning, not to say lamentable narrow-mindedness which 



is one outcome of specializing ; he must 

 feel, in spite of the opinions of his kind, 

 that, after all, he is doing more real good 

 to the cause which he has at heart, by 

 gaining new adherents from a careless 

 public and by taking his light from under 

 the bushel of specialization, than by 

 sitting still until some opportunity for 

 feeding the flame of original rerearch may 

 come to him. 



In volume iii. of the Cambridge Natural 

 History, which deals with the Mollusca, 

 and, to the credit of Malacology, is the first 

 of the series toappear, the Reverend A. H. 

 Cooke has come very near to attaining 

 the ideal which he had before him, and, 

 has succeeded in producing a book which 

 cannot fail to bring new workers into the 

 field, if only by the prominence given to 

 those features of the Mollucca which have always rendered the deeper study 

 of this well-defined group so especially fascinating ; while the experienced 

 Malacologist can find here much that was hitherto scattered now brought 

 together lor the first time in a way that he will appreciate, and even the 

 general biologist may gain from this work fresh illustrations of those general 

 laws of existence to which his life is devoted. 



Mr. Cooke in his opening 

 chapters dilates upon the 

 origin of land and fresh- 

 water molluscs, together 

 wich the habits of these 

 forms, and then, becoming 

 more general he takes cog- 

 nizance of the enemies of 

 the group and the means of 

 defence against them, in- 

 cluding mimicry and pro- 

 tective colouration. Obser- 

 vations on this branch of 



t See the prospectus of the Cambridge Natural History. 



Figure 28. A.SIicDibnii mainiliavu.', Lain 

 B. Coiiiis Jantis. Hwass. 



FlGUIlE 126. 



Four' rows of teetli of Vt;rmctus giandi. 

 Gray, x 40. 



