214 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. 9, NO. 7, JULY, 1899. 



Mollusca of New Caledonia, which appeared in the Revue et Magasin 

 de Zoologie between the years 1855 and 1859. One important work on 

 the Natural History of the Mollusca of Madagascar, which was com- 

 menced with the assistance of P. Fischer, remained unfinished. Nor 

 did Crosse live to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the publication of the 

 last part of his important studies on the Land and Freshwater Mollusca 

 of Mexico and Guatemala. 



Crosse possessed a very characteristic and distinguished style of 

 writing which combined literary elegance with scientific exactitude. 

 He would rigorously exclude all generic or specific terms of doubtful 

 Latinity, and never admitted that naturalists had a right to ignore the 

 idiom of a language which was once, and still ought to be, the universal 

 scientific medium. He insisted that each detailed description of a 

 new species should be accompanied by an exact Latin diagnosis. 

 How much easier of access would be the obscure works of foreign 

 writers if this rule were universal. 



Crosse was a faithful supporter of Cuvier's theories and held firmly the 

 conception of a species as a permanent entity. The Darwinian theory 

 of the variability of species, which was in opposition to his philosophical 

 and religious tenets, was never accepted by him, or granted to be more 

 than a hypothesis, seductive no doubt, but void of sufficient proof. 

 In contradiction to the theory of evolution, he would cite as a positive 

 and indisputable fact the persistence of such ancient genera as 

 Pleurotomaria and Ltngula, which are still represented with their 

 unaltered primitive characteristics. 



Crosse repeatedly opposed the tendency of certain naturalists who 

 desire to abolish the Linnean species, replacing them by a large number 

 of others founded on slight and unimportant differences, without taking 

 into account the intermediate links between them. He considered 

 that the drawback of this proceeding consisted in attaching too great an 

 importance to mere details, and in relegating broad comparisons and 

 generalities to the background. But although he held firmly to his 

 own convictions, he generously appreciated the standpoint of those 

 opposed to him, and if his criticism was often keen, it was neither bitter 

 nor personal. Indeed, even while jealously guarding his own indepen- 

 dence of judgment, his genial temperament would lead him to soften 

 the expression of his opinions, and to meet his opponents with 

 indulgent kindliness. To the humble worker and the newcomer in 

 his own field he always extended a warm welcome. 



Conchologists alone know how large is the debt their branch of 

 science owes to Hippolyte Crosse, and it will not be forgotten that 

 during a long life he clung to high ideals and unwavering principles. 

 He was a spiritualist, in the philosophic not the popular sense, and 



