MELVILL : BRITISH PIONEERS IN CONCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 191 



that differentiations must exist in created objects, in order that 



separate organisms may be distinguished :— 



" Quin intercurrat quoedam distantia formis, . 



Concharumque genus parili ratione videmus 

 Pingere telluris gremiiim, qua mollibus undis 

 Littoris incurvi bibulam patet sequor harenam." 



Lucr. ii. 374-377- 



To xA.ristotle and C. Plinius Secundus belong the whole 

 merit of successful study amongst the ancients. 



The former indeed so admirably planned his system of 

 classification that it may be truly said to have been unsurpassed 

 for nearly 2,000 years, and even now cannot be investigated 

 without the sincerest admiration for his great talents being 

 evoked. His two great families, Movo6v(^a and SiSv^a, uni- 

 valves and bivalves, are in the former sub-divided into whorled 

 and unwhorled shells, containing (i) the rropcfivpoi and other 

 Gasteropods, and (ii.), aAtojrt? and Ni^ptrat. Whilst among 

 the bivalves he signalizes /<Tei'at=pectines, a-ojAr;v, Trtvi'a and 

 TeXXiurj, names which will survive to all time in the science. 

 He flourished B.C. 330. 



It was not till nearly four hundred years after that Pliny 

 the Elder planned the work of his life, entitled ' Historia 

 Naturalis.' Born in A.D. 23, this was published in 77, two 

 years before the eruption of Vesuvius which overthrew Pompeii 

 and Herculaneum, and was the cause of his death, having been 

 overtaken in course of flight, by the burning ashes or scoriae. 

 In the ninth book of this history he treats on shells, but his 

 arrangement was neither so trustworthy or well-planned as that 

 of his predecessor, Aristotle. He introduces many terms, how- 

 ever, which are still in use, making thirty-three families in all, 

 and in many ways his treatise has much to commend it. 



I felt it necessary thus to preface the remarks I am about to 

 offer on the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the Concho- 

 logical Society, being anxious to trace briefly, the progressive 

 part successive generations of our countrymen have taken in 

 furthering our present knowledge of the Mollusca; and, naturally, 



