62 



CLAUSILIA CLAVIJA. 



and stretches in range beyond all but the very 

 simplest and most elementary observation. It goes 

 to the sun. to the planets, and it speculates to the 

 stars ; and in all those regions which form so mighty 

 a volume, that the earth is but a point in its humblest 

 page, all that we can know is distance, magnitude, 

 mass, motion, and mutual influence of one of those 

 bodies upon another. From this vast height, in the 

 extreme of which we are lost in the infinitude of great- 

 ness, we descend downward to air, and water, and 

 solid matter, whether in larger or smaller masses, and 

 to every thing, in short, which goes to the composi- 

 tion of our earth, and which is not immediately under 

 the influence of vegetable growth or animal life. 

 Nay, our inquiry into mere matter includes the sub- 

 stance of which all plants and all animals are formed : 

 and we can and do speak about the component parts 

 of them, while they are entire, and growing, and 

 living, just as though these component parts were 

 separate portions of dead matter. Nor do our in- 

 quiries stop even here, for it is the province and the 

 business of the student of dead nature, to extend his 

 observation, and apply his reasoning, from the most 

 distant mass to which the line in the balance can be 

 applied, down to the very verge of the primary atom, 

 the smallness of which makes it as inscrutable to our 

 knowledge as it does the magnitude of the other ex- 

 treme. Within these boundaries there are situated 

 all the sciences which are physical, including chemi- 

 cal science among the number ; and in this grand 

 division, the name of natural history is not generally 

 applied to any thing but to the description of those 

 individual masses of matter which can be distinguished 

 from each other by their peculiar characters. But 

 still this humble portion has its use in the system, 

 though taken singly that use is very limited. 



Vegetables and animals are less extensive in their 

 scope, because we find them only on the surface of 

 the earth or in the waters ; and their situations are 

 generally such as that we can go all round them and 

 examine them, and study their progressive histories 

 in time as well as their momentary appearances. 

 Therefore we have many more characters in the case 

 of them, and thus it is here chiefly that classification 

 becomes of the greatest value, and where the abuse 

 or the captious use of it is calculated to do the most 

 mischief. Accordingly much time has been devoted to 

 the classifying of plants and animals ; and the result 

 of this labour, though of course, from the very nature 

 of the case, not altogether or even nearly perfect, 

 has made so much progress as to be highly valuable 

 to the student, by being to him an instrument by the 

 skilful application of which he can acquire more 

 knowledge in a few days than he could without its 

 assistance acquire in a life-time. 



The individual classifications applying to both of 

 these departments will be found in the notices, gene- 

 ral and particular, of the subjects themselves ; and as 

 it would be contrary to the nature and object of a 

 popular work to teach system-making, being the very 

 subject which people should specially avoid attempt- 

 ing, we do not feel that more words are necessary. 



CLAUSILIA (Lamarck). This characteristic 

 name was, in the first instance, given to shells in 

 which the entrance of the opening was closed at a 

 certain depth by a moveable ovate testaceous lid, 

 performing the office of an operculum, and supported 

 by a thin elastic pedicle inserted in the columella. 

 This lid closes upon the animal when it retreats within 



its dwelling, by means of the pedicle acting as a 

 spring. Lamarck has not been able to ascertain that 

 all the examples he has given of this genus are so 

 provided, but naturally concludes they should be, and 

 has constituted the genus from the other constant 

 and similar characters to be observed in them, the 

 most remarkable of which is that of the termination 

 of the last whorl being quite detached from the base 

 of the shell. The aperture is ovate or rounded, its 

 edge entire, and the margin reflected outwards. 

 These shells are all of them terrestrial, fusiform, 

 slender, and the summit rather obtuse, to which may 

 be added, though not mentioned by Lamarck, that 

 the opening is occasionally dentated The structure 

 of the animal is similar to that of the helix, but having 

 the first pair of tentacula very short. About twelve 

 recent species are known, the greater number of which 

 are European, and found particularly on the borders 

 of the Mediterranean. Several are also known from 

 the American archipelago. Second class, Para- 

 cephalophora ; first order, Pulmobranchutta : third 

 family, Limacinea. 



CLAVAGELLA (Lamarck). This genus of 

 shells was unknown to Lamarck in a recent state. 

 He considered it an intermediate species between 

 the Aspergillum and the Fistulana, differing from the 

 former by having only one external fixed valve, the 

 other free and internal, and from the latter, which has 

 no perforations at the larger extremity ; this shell has 

 also an appearance of small projecting tubes at one 

 extremity round the disk, similar to those of the 

 Aspergillum. Sowerby, in his Genera of Shells, 

 No. 13, has described the only recent species of this 

 genus supposed to be known. It is classed bv 

 Lamarck between the genera Aspergillum and 

 Fistulana. 



CLAVATULA (Lamarck). A mollusc, united 

 to the genus Pleurotoma by De Blainville, as being 

 no other than a species of that genus. 



CLAVIGER (Preysler). An extraordinary genus 

 of coleopterous insects, nearly allied to the family 

 Pselaphidce, having the elytra shorter than the ab- 

 domen, and truncate ; the antenna? thick and six- 

 jointed ; the eyes are wanting ; the maxillary palpi 

 very minute, and apparently without articulations ; 

 and the tarsi are three-jointed, the last joint being 

 furnished with a single claw. These curious little 

 insects are not above one-eighth of an inch in length, 

 and are found under stones in dry situations ; they 

 are likewise often met with in the nests of ants. 

 M. Muller has published a good monograph upon 

 this genus in the third volume of Germar's Maguzin 

 der Entomologie, as has also M. Aube, more recently, 

 in M. Guerin's Magazin de Zoologie. M. Dalman 

 has described another genus, even more remarkable 

 than the foregoing (to which, however, it is intimately 

 allied), under the name of Articcrus, and which was 

 discovered by him embedded in the substance so 

 often mistaken for amber, namely, gum ammo*. The 

 antennae are composed of a single long cylindrical 

 joint. 



CLAVIJA (Ruiz and Favon). A South American 

 tree, which, when cultivated in a dwarfed slate in our 

 hothouses, forms a very healthy ornamental plant. 

 Linnaean class and order, Pentandria Moiwgi/nia ; and 

 natural order, Myrsmcce. Generic character : calyx 

 five-toothed ; corolla bell-shaped, limb in five lobes ; 

 stamens shorter than the corolla, on a cup round the 

 seed-vessel ; berry having a free central placenta. 



