INTRODUCTION. 131 



Patellites, Volutites, and others; the Mussels or Conchifera 

 with which Brachiopoda and Cirripedia used to be included, 

 were grouped under various generic names e.g., Myacites, 

 Tellinites, Pectinites, Gryphites, etc. Brachiopods were termed 

 "conchse anomiae " or "Anomites," following the precedent of 

 Fabio Colonna. 



The Systematic Conchology of Denis de Montfort (i 808-10) 

 contained several new genera, chiefly of cephalopods, but the 

 descriptions were extremely meagre. The more meritorious 

 work of Bruguieres, in the Encyclopedic Methodique^ on 

 living and fossil molluscs and brachiopods, was unfortunately 

 cut short by the premature death of the author. 



Lamarck 1 was the great reformer and founder ot scientific 

 conchology. He published in the Annales du Museum a 

 monograph of the Tertiary mollusca of the Paris basin, with a 

 good series of plates ; and in his Natural History of Inverte- 

 brate Animals he defined the numerous genera and species of 

 invertebrate animals with masterly skill and precision, and laid 

 down, more especially for mollusca, a systematic basis which 

 held its place for several decades. 



Another work, almost as important for the knowledge of 

 fossil mollusca, although of far less scientific depth than 

 Lamarck's, was the Mmeral Conchology of Great Britain, 

 begun by James Sowerby in the year 1812, and completed by 

 his son, James de Carle Sowerby, between 1822 and 1845. 

 It is an illustrated catalogue of all the fossil mollusca occur- 



1 Jean Baptiste de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, born 1744 at Buz- 

 antin, near Bapaume (Somme), distinguished himself early in the army 

 career which he had chosen, but was wounded and had to take up another 

 calling ; he then studied medicine, working in a bank to provide a means 

 of livelihood, and devoted himself with enthusiasm to botany, physics, and 

 chemistry. In 1773 h fi published a French Flora, in 1778 was appointed 

 Custodian of the Botanical Gardens, and when he was in his fiftieth year 

 was elected to the Professorship of Zoology in the Museum, an appoint- 

 ment which he held until his death in 1829. In 1801 he published his 

 System of Invertebrates, and between the years 1815-22 his greatest work, 

 the Natural History of Invertebrate Animals. A second edition of this | 

 work appeared in 1836, with additions by Deshayes and Milne-Edwards. 

 In his Philosophy of Zoology, Lamarck gave all the weight of his know- 

 ledge and experience to the support and elucidation of the Theory of 

 Descent and Specific Variation. As is well known, Lamarck held that 

 acquired characters could be transmitted to descendants, and become per- 

 manently established in the race. These ideas met at first with great 

 opposition, and only received support in more recent years. His ad- 

 herents at the present day form the so-called Neo-Lamarckian school. 



