218 Bibliographical Notice. 



has been done. Such illiberal conduct is unworthy of this wealthy 

 empire, and has given considerable dissatisfaction in other countries. 

 The present deficiencies or fallings off in our national exchequer 

 afford no excuse. 



But to resume our notice of the present memoir. Herr Friele is a 

 painstaking conchologist of some experience, and is not at all given 

 to the too prevalent vice of many continental conchologists of fabri- 

 cating new species, whether from insufficient knowledge or from a 

 poor and spurious kind of vainglory. A noteworthy instance of 

 his conscientiousness and true love of science occurs in his now 

 merging his Buccinum Morclii as a variety in the B. hydrophanum 

 of Hancock, as well as in his generous remarks on the labours of 

 other conchologists. 



The subject of the present memoir is the family Buccinidse, which 

 may be said to be especially at home in the arctic and northern 

 seas of both hemispheres. According to the views of the author, this 

 family comprises the genera Jutnala with one species, Vblutopsis 

 with one species, Pyrolofusus with one species, Neptune a (rccte 

 Neptunia seu potius Neptunina) with seventeen species, Troschclia 

 with one species, and Buccinum with twelve species ; in all six 

 genera and thirty-three species. The varieties of other species are 

 also noticed. Ten species are for the first time described and 

 figured. We must demur to this multiplication of genera, believing 

 that the grounds of distinction are not sufficient, and that all the 

 above-named genera are merely sections of the Lamarckian genus 

 Fusus and the restricted genus Buccinum. The present author 

 attaches considerable importance to the dentition as a generic cha- 

 racter ; but this is, at any rate, a difficult basis of classification. 

 What are we to do with the fossil, and consequently now toothless, 

 Gastropods ? The structure, and even the presence of the odonto- 

 phore, in that order of Mollusca depends on the nature of their food. 

 The late Dr. Gray and Prof. Troschel, who were the chief, apostles 

 of this doctrine, carried it to a great extreme ; and the latter went 

 so far as to distinguish as separate species, on odontological grounds, 

 some (e. g. Aclmete crispa and A. virididci) which all other concho- 

 logists regard as the same. Herr Friele has conclusively proved that 

 in the Bueeinidse "diversity of dentition affords any thing but a 

 trustworthy guide " in distinguishing species. One important cha- 

 racter of such distinction has not been lost sight of by him, viz. the 

 shape of the apex or embryonic whorls. 



Although it is generally expected that every review or notice of a 

 work ought to contain some criticism, it would not be easy to find 

 many faults in this memoir. Perhaps, judging from the descriptions 

 and plates, it may be thought that Neptunea Hanseni has a suspi- 

 cious resemblance to N. turgid ula, and Buccinum sulcatum to one of 

 the numerous varieties of that polymorphous species B. groenlandi- 

 cum, which last may possibly have to be merged in B. tindatum as 

 an arctic variety. Neptunea carta is apparently not the species so 

 named by Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys, but his Fusus Sabini=F. ebur, Morcfcu 

 We think N. Jlohni should be generically separated as Mohnia, on 

 account of its abnormal and Littorinidan operculum. More infor- 

 mation as to the geographical and bathymetrical range of most of 







