126 



CONCHOLOGY. 



Lister, in 1685, still followed a similar arrange- 

 ment ; but, having the advantage of examining a 

 far greater number of shells, his treatise is conse- 

 quently more complete. His work, Historue sive 

 Synopsis Methodica Conchyliorum libri quatuor, ap- 

 peared in parts, and continued down to 1688. It 

 contains, besides, a great number of plates, faithfully 

 drawn and engraved b)' his daughters, the intro. 

 duction of a distinction between the equality or 

 inequality of the valves. He also appears the first 

 to have attached a proper importance to the con- 

 sideration of the hinges of bivalves. 



Tournefort, an eminent French botanist, who died 

 in I 708, attempted to facilitate the study of shells, 

 which he designated under the general name of 

 Testacea, defining them as the envelopes of certain 

 animals possessing the hardness of a tile, or baked 

 earthen vessel ; but his method was only known for 

 the first time by a work of Gualtier's, published in 

 1748. Tournefort substituted the names of Monotonia, 

 Ditama, and Polytoma, for those of the present day. 

 Among the Monotonies he established the distinction 

 between the univalves, properly so called, and the 

 spirivalves and fistulivalves, and his generic charac- 

 ters are considerably guided by the form of the 

 aperture. In his class Ditoma he is said to have 

 been the first to establish a division between the 

 bivalves that closed perfectly (Clausa) and those 

 which partially gaped (Hiantes). He also paid atten- 

 tion to the position of the hinge. In his Polytoma 

 he, however, confounds the Echini and Balani, 



Rumphius, in 171 1, described a considerable num- 

 ber of shells from the Indian seas, but he did not add 

 much to the science of Conchology. He did not 

 even separate the bivalves from the multivalves ; 

 and with respect to the univalves, he considered them 

 simple or turbinated, as distinguished by Aristotle. He, 

 nevertheless, indicated some well-defined divisions, 

 such as the Strombus, Foluta,and the porcelanic genera. 



Lang, in 1722, proposed a new but partial con- 

 chological distribution, merely treating of marine 

 shells ; but notwithstanding the pompous enuncia- 

 tion of his work, which is too long to be here 

 inserted, he added very little to Lister's arrangement 

 beyond examining the equality or inequality of the 

 valves, arid the relative positions of the summits. He 

 also paid rather more attention to the form of the 

 apertures in univalves, and of the summits of bivalves, 

 in these he likewise established a division of anoma- 

 lous species. 



J. Ernest Hebenstreit, in 1791, published a disser- 

 tation, entitled, De ordinibus Conckyfiorum Methodica 

 Ratione instituendls, in which there are but few impor- 

 tant novelties. He, nevertheless, among the univalves, 

 pays more attention to the spine than his predeces- 

 sors had done ; and in the bivalves, his first division 

 is characterised by the presence or the absence of the 

 hinge, as then considered. 



Phillip Breyn, in 1830, first drew the attention of 

 conchologists to a distinctive character of shells, up 

 to that period overlooked, this was the number of 

 cells or separations in univalves, whence proceed the 

 names polythalamia and monothalamia. 



Gualtieri, an Italian author, in 1742, published a 

 work which still possesses some degree of reputation, 

 from the great number of shells figured. They are, 

 however, but indifferently executed, and fall far short 

 of modern illustrations. As a work of scientific refer- 

 ence, it includes all, or nearly so, that his predeces- 



sors had introduced in the way of classification, with- 

 out adding much improvement or novelty; we shall 

 not, therefore, dwell upon it, but merely observe, that 

 though he indicates many generic divisions, they are 

 not established on a solid basis, and have afforded but 

 little to guide subsequent writers. 



D'Argenville, in the same year, published in France 

 the first edition of his work, De rH'istoirc Naturellc 

 eclairde dans Deux de ces Parties Principales, la Litho- 

 logie et la Conchyliologie, a work like that of Gualtieri's, 

 much admired for its plates, but containing little scien- 

 tific improvement to recommend it. In nearly all 

 he has done, Lister's system was his guide, and 

 when he ceased to consult or follow that authority, 

 he has invariably made matters more obscure, though 

 he is most unjustly critical in his observations on that 

 author. 



Klein, immediately after D'Argenville, published a 

 work entirely systematic, but without the advantage 

 of good illustrations. His object appears to have been 

 that of overturning and changing all Linnams attempt- 

 ed to establish ; this being unsupported by the reasons 

 of subsequent writers, render his work a mass of confu- 

 sion and little worthy of reference. He certainly pro- 

 posed, rather than established, a great number of 

 genera since adopted ; but the characters assigned to 

 them were so vague, and so badly circumscribed, that 

 his writings have nearly fallen into oblivion. His clas- 

 sification of the Echini, however, merits praise as being 

 the first attempt, though extremely deficient in exe- 

 cution. 



Adanson, in 1757, published his voyage to Sene- 

 gal, and, although the first editions of Linnaeus' Sys- 

 tema Naturee had already appeared, we place his 

 information in a point of priority, because it appears 

 quite evident that great naturalist must have derived 

 a considerable portion of his general fixed principles 

 of conchology from Adanson ; he also may, more 

 properly, be considered a writer on malacology, since 

 he examines shells, with their animal architects. By 

 this much innovation was introduced into the science 

 of conchology, properly or abstractedly so called in 

 this article. Thus, besides an elaborate study of each 

 of the parts of shells, and a description of the charac- 

 ters, he may be said to have formed a distinct system 

 for each. Among other novelties in conf.rmation of this 

 he divides bivalve shells according to the number of 

 their muscles, or their attachments ; and above all, he 

 has introduced the consideration of the operculum, an 

 important feature of the science, up to his time alto- 

 gether neglected, or nearly so, by subsequent authors. 

 From this consideration, he established in the Helices 

 two marked sections : the first, univalve snails ; the 

 second, operculated species, which he considered, 

 though very erroneously, as forming the gradation to 

 bivalves. He appears also to have been the first who 

 classed the Patella, with the Chiton, his section of mul- 

 ti valve conchs containing only the Pholas and the 

 Teredo. 



Linnaeus, in his first edition of the Systema Naturee, 

 proved that he was not master of this part of natural 

 history ; but in the edition following Adanson's work, 

 he exhibited the possibility of applying the same 

 principles which he had discovered and so advanta- 

 geously employed in botany. He, nevertheless.created 

 no very novel consideration in the first divisions; nor, 

 indeed, in the secondary ones, since he divides shells 

 into multivalves, with which he begins, and in which 

 he places the Chiton; bivalves and univalves, after- 



