BihliograpMcal Notices. 279. 



" Numerous woodcuts are interspersed throughout the text; and the 

 second vohime is entirely occupied with sixty-seven plates of the 

 species, from drawings by the author and his friends, and engraved 

 by Tuffen West. The plates are excellent ; almost every species is 

 fully illustrated, and the character of the drawings is all that could 

 be wished. 



British Concliolorjy. Yol. V. By Johk Gwyn Jeffeets, F.R.S., 

 F.G.S., &c. Van Voorst, 1869. 



Mr. Jefprets's work upon the British Mollusca is complete. We 

 have from time to time noticed the previous volumes as they were 

 published, and are glad to welcome the fifth and concluding volume. 

 We believe that the work has extended to a much greater length 

 than was originally contemplated by its author ; but at the same 

 time it is much more complete. While we regret that this very 

 perfection of the book, and its consequently increased price, places 

 it, we fear, beyond the reach of many active naturalists, the length 

 of whose purse is not in proportion to their ardour in the piu'suit of 

 natural history, it will be a satisfaction to all students of conchology 

 who can purchase Mr. Jeffreys's work to find that it supplies them 

 with all that they could desire. There is very much here which is 

 not to be met with in the ' History ' of Forbes and Hanley — descrip- 

 tions and figures of the numerous species which have been recently 

 added to the British fauna, descriptions of a large number of the 

 inhabitants of the shells which are not to be found elsewhere, nu- 

 merous corrections of synonymy, much extended information on 

 the range in area, in depth, and in geological time of the species, 

 together with a mass of carefully analyzed and compressed details 

 on Life-history and habits, collected from the extended bibliography 

 on the subject of the last twenty years. 



The present volume contains the history of the families Aplysiadse, 

 PleurobranchidoD, RuneinidoD, and Pleurophyllidiidae ; the order 

 Nudibrancliiata, the marine Pulmonobranchiata, and the classes 

 Cephalopoda and Pteropoda. The account, of the Nudi branchiate 

 Mollusca was written for Mr. Jeffreys by the late Mr. Alder, and 

 therefore has additional value as coming from him who was facile 

 princeps in that department of the Mollusca. At the end of the 

 volume is a supplement containing some eighty pages of very con- 

 densed notes of recent observations on an immense number of species, 

 and descriptions of many MoUusca new to the British fainia, the 

 products chiefly of Shetland dredging, and of the dredging of Messrs. 

 Carpenter and Thomson last year, in H.M.S. 'Lightning,' in the 

 abyss of the sea between the Hebrides and Faroe Islands. These 

 notes are of extreme interest, showing the range of a considerable 

 number of Mollusca to the great depth of from 500 to G50 fathoms. 



But the chief value of this concluding volume of ' British Con- 

 chology' consists in the plates. At the commencement we find, as 

 usual, a coloured frontispiece — in this instance an admirably coloured 

 and life-like figure of Octopus vulgaris, one of the very best and 



