42 REVIEWS. 



pursuit of truth necessarily produces alienation of feeling and bitter- 

 ness of condemnation, the gem is hardly worth the cost at which it 

 must be obtained. W. H. 



Ohservafions on the Tei'restrial Pulmonifera of Maine, including a 

 Catalogue of all the species of terrestrial and fluviatile MoUusca 

 known to inhabit the State. By Edward S. Morse. Portland, 

 1864. 



This little work, though separately offered for sale, is an article 

 extracted from the Journal of the Portland Society of Natural History 

 for March, 1864. It is at the same time a useful contribution to 

 local natural history, and contains valuable structural observations 

 relating especially to the buccal plate and the lingual membrane, 

 illustrated by many well executed figures, rendering it exceedingly 

 interesting and useful to every student of the land and fresh water 

 Mollusca. How far the author is right in considering the differences 

 in the figure and markings of the buccal plate, and in the compara- 

 tive number of plates in a row on the lingual ribbon as generic and 

 family characters, we shall not now attempt to determine, nor have we 

 formed a distinct opinion on the subject ; but there can be no question 

 that such characters have great value ia their proper place, and that 

 the observation of them increases our knowledge of the animals and 

 our interest in studying them. If some of these variations were to be 

 ultimately regarded as only affording sectional characters within a 

 natural genus, and as demanding less multiplicity of names, they 

 would still lose none of their interest with the careful student, and 

 such a statement and illustration of them as is given in this work o^ 

 Professor Morse must be deservedly held in very high estimation. 

 We shall look with much interest for his promised paper on the class- 

 ification of the Pulmonifera, in which he will give his reasons for the 

 arrangement he has adopted. One thing is obvious — that the neces- 

 sity for very numerous names greatly increases the risk of the intro- 

 duction of barbarous or improperly constructed ones, and of the use 

 of the same names in different branches of natural science, an abuse 

 not to be endured ; and it becomes all original investigators who may 

 have to select names to be very cautious lest they should burden 

 science with names which cannot be retained. We do not at this 



