Xxii INTRODUCTION. [CH. 



As Dr. Carpenter has well observed, in his Researches 

 on the Foraminifera *, "The creation of any organism 

 seems to me just as much to require the exertion of 

 Divine Power when it takes place in the ordinary course 

 of generation, as it would do if that organism were to 

 be called into existence de novo ; the question being in 

 reality whether such exertion takes place in the way of 

 continuous exercise according to a settled and compre- 

 hensive plan, or by a series of disconnected efforts." 



Synonymy. Although the prevalent habit of multi- 

 plying species is much to be deprecated, an equal amount 

 of injury has been done to the cause of science by the 

 unnecessary addition, from time to time, of fresh names 

 for species which had been previously described; tjie 

 consequence of which is that an overgrown mass of 

 nomenclature encumbers most works on natural history. 

 For our common Cockle and its varieties no less than 

 sixteen, and for the Oyster fourteen different names 

 have been given by British and Continental writers ; a 

 genus of minute shells (Odostomia) has received from 

 various conchologists twenty different names ; and in an 

 essay of M. Bourguignat on the species of Pisidium (a 

 small freshwater bivalve) the synonymy of P. amnicum 

 comprises eighty specific names and extends over more 

 than five octavo pages. The student may well stand 

 aghast at this fearful array of names, which bewilder him 

 and obstruct his entrance into the portals of the edifice 

 of natural history ! This redundancy of names for the 

 same object has partly arisen from the want of inter- 

 course which naturalists of this and other countries 

 experienced formerly, and especially during that chronic 

 state of international warfare which so long debarred us 

 from any communication with foreigners. Such an 



* Phil. Trans, vol. cl. p. 570. 



