22 2 MELVILL: BRITISH PIONEERS IN CONCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 



ing Expedition (1879 — 1880), are cases in point. These both 

 introduce us to the deep sea forms, so strange, so wonderfully 

 sculptured, and so rare, which have for ages lain hid and 

 unrevealed from the world, and which can hardly ever be 

 expected to become the cynosure of many eyes, owing to the 

 difficulty and expense of procuring them from such abysmal 

 depths. 



M. Paul Fischer has taken Woodward's Manual, already 

 referred to, as the basis of his last work " Manuel de Conchy- 

 liologie," 1887. This will now remain for many years our 

 standard work on classification of the recent and fossil shells, as 

 all the additional genera, and all the discoveries made in the 

 science, both systematic and otherwise, since Woodward's and 

 Adams' time, are duly recorded there. We must also not omit to 

 notice Prof. Ray Lankester's scheme for the rearrangement of the 

 MoUusca in the new edition of the Encyclopoedia Britannica. 



What requires to be done in the future is best answered by 

 the corresponding question, " What is there that is not required 

 to be done ? " 



We require, first, establishments in likely stations thorough- 

 out the world similar to those Marine Biological Laboratories 

 recently erected at Plymouth and Prof. A. Dohrn's at Naples. 

 This we deem is only a question of time. Such places as Belli- 

 gaum Bay on the south coast of Ceylon, visited and expatiated 

 upon in such glowing terms by Prof. Hseckel, the island of 

 Keywest, South Florida, which I visited in 1872, and found 

 most prolific in mollusca, animal and vegetable life of all kinds, 

 Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, and Rottenest Island, W. 

 Australia, might be signalised as places admirably adapted 

 naturally for stations of research. 



We require, secondly. Museums arranged so as really to 

 become of use to the uninitiated, and competent to be exponents 

 and teachers themselves to the ignorant. The superintendent 

 of the Natural History Museum (Prof. W. H. Flower) is alive 

 to this, as his excellent Presidential Address at the British 



J.C., vi., Apr., 1890. 



