MALACOLOGY. 



77 



tion, compared with which the proudest work of hu- 

 man ingenuity is at best but a pitiful imitation ; and 

 we are thus taught to believe, upon the evidence of 

 our known senses, that the most trivial difference in 

 the uniformity of nature's economy is, and must be, 

 the result of given physical powers, to which all parts 

 of the machinery in some way contribute, under the 

 guidance of the great Master's hand, variously stimu- 

 lating the numberless tribes of animated nature, each 

 after its kind, not l>y chance, but according to the pre- 

 destined purposes of their existence, all subservient 

 to vain-glorious man, and every one manifestly illus- 

 trative of the omnipotence of that supreme wisdom, 

 which directs and governs the whole, ordaining a per- 

 petual harmony of system, in order that the extinction 

 of life shall not be felt, and the devastations of time 

 become supplied by succeeding generations. 



This not being our present purpose, we will pass over 

 the monstrous stones of an era darkened by ignorance 

 and superstition, though many of them, when divested 

 of their fiction, give evidence of having been founded 

 on natural observations, since confirmed to a certain 

 extent. ; and we will take our starting point from that 

 period when the greatest of all naturalists, Linna3iis, 

 formed his imperishable monument of nature's history, 

 the Systernu Naturffi. It would be consummate arro- 

 gance and affectation in us to deny that any other can 

 be formed with greater accuracy, taken as an original 

 whole ; but it is not in the power of man to 

 define a complete, much less a perfect, system ; 

 and we should be wilfully blind, or close our 

 eyes to truth, were we not to attempt an improve- 

 ment upon it with the immense facilities since afforded 

 us, and by that extension of the human mind to which 

 no bounds can be placed, though at last far from 

 attaining all its bright dreams. To the present day, 

 many exist who would deem it worse than treason to 

 dissent from the laws of Linnueus, and bold must that 

 man have been who first dared to throw off the 

 shackles of prejudice and deeply-rooted early habits, 

 in order to exercise for himself the dictates of reason, 

 when they were in opposition to so great an autho- 

 rity. Such men were, however, found as naturalists ; 

 and, thoiiR-h for many years the study of nature's 

 productions was almost exclusively confined to the 

 Continent, we must not forget, in the admiration so 

 justly due to the illustrious names of Swammerdam, 

 Fabricius, Pallas, Adanson, Muller, Poli, and a host of 

 other eminent men, that we have Lister, Hunter, Munro, 

 Willis, Leach, and many others of our own time, who 

 lent their learning and contributed largely to the 

 same good cause. .As English naturalists, they must 

 come in for their share of that information which has 

 led to the mighty results, more recently communicated 

 to mankind, of the subject we are now more particu- 

 larly upon, by the unwearied and triumphant efforts 

 of nature's chamberlain Cuvier. Such men, like 

 cornels, are few and far between ; but their course is 

 marked in more enduring characters, and the track 

 they have pursued will never be effaced from the 

 annals of science. To the gigantic mind of Cuvier, 

 modern naturalists gladly cede the palm of superiority, 

 an<1 the period is not yet calculated when another 

 shall eclipse his well earned fame. 



He possessed, it is true, a rich store of other men's 

 laborious research, with an education fitted to (he 

 proper use and understanding of that treasure ; but 

 he commenced the labours of a naturalist under most 

 adverse auspices; these did not, however, delcr him 



from his leading passion, and he finally became what 

 he was, through a patient and wearisome course of 

 new and difficult observations, aided by an enthusi- 

 astic love of his subject, and the well directed strength 

 of a powerful mind, determined to exercise its own 

 dictates, though they militated against the long esta- 

 blished homage paid to previous authors, whom he, 

 nevertheless always admired as his superiors. His 

 conversations and intimacy with nature, if we may 

 be allowed that trope, might well have rendered him 

 vain-glorious ; but, on the contrary, his life, his writ- 

 ings, every thing relating to his biography, and the 

 intercourse we happily enjoyed personally with him, 

 prove him to have been an unassuming humble-minded 

 man, open to conviction, and not despising informa- 

 tion from the meanest source. This then is the man 

 chosen by common consent as a guide for systema- 

 tising our present but little understood order of natural 

 history. The imperfection of the Linnaean system in 

 this branch was manifest, and a reference to the article 

 CONCHOLOGY will point out some part of its errors ;. 

 but as it is no difficult task to find fault, though a verv 

 difficult one to amend, until within the last half 

 century nothing beyond suggestions of improvement 

 were cautiously thrown out ; till at length Cuvior, 

 profiting by them, and undismayed by the difficulty 

 of the task, determined upon remodelling the old 

 system, forming on its ruins a new superstructure, 

 which included the molluscous animals without a cal- 

 careous protection, as well as their more numerous 

 relatives with one, clearly demonstrating the folly of 

 making a separate arrangement of shells from their 

 inhabitants, or forming a system of parts of the whole 

 order, any more than might have been done with the 

 scales of fishes, the feathers of birds, or other integral 

 portions of the same animal, whatever its rank in 

 natural science. In this he took nature for his guide,, 

 most ably following the indications she always pre- 

 sents, for a systematic arrangement of her works. 

 Having already stated that we shall pass over the 

 intermediate minor steps of'graduul improvement, and 

 alteration which had taken place prior to the present 

 arrangement of molluscs, we will attempt to describe 

 the system as it now stands, sanctioned by every en- 

 lightened mind, as the only true basis of Malacology. 

 To do this it will nevertheless be useful that we 

 should rapidly trace some of the mot important cor- 

 rections, or innovations, as they have been termed 

 by the disciples of the old school. 



Daubenton, in 1743, read a Discourse to the 

 French Academy of Sciences, of w Inch at that time he 

 was not a member, pointing out. a methodical distri- 

 bution of the shells of molluscous animals ; in this he 

 attempted to show that a knowledge of them was not 

 sufficient to guide the systematic arrangement of their 

 inhabitants, and remarked that a more extended exa- 

 mination of their anatomical structure was indispen- 

 sable to form a more natural system of conchology, 

 even according to the then eslablished rule of Linnaian 

 science, he did not, however, act up to his own sug- 

 gestion, by pursuing these notions so justly formed. 



In 1756, Guettard, a member of the same learned 

 body, appears to be the first who acted upon the hint 

 given ; and though his dissertation was supposed to 

 be an implied satire on Buffon's writings, he clearly 

 pointed out the necessity of having recourse to the 

 animals constructing these dwellings, in order to come 

 to a right conclusion respecting the dwellings them- 

 selves, he, accordingly introduced many very important 



