80 Notices of Scientific Works. [Jan., 



as of their geographical distribution. In addition to these details, 

 the work is rendered interesting by such anecdotes and con- 

 siderations as are calculated to relieve the tedium of study, and 

 we have here and there incidents concerning the different kinds of 

 molluscs, which form an agreeable diversion from the consideration 

 of their anatomy, the form and colour of their shells, and the 

 divergences of species. 



In speaking of Helix aspersa, the author tells us * " they make 

 great havoc in kitchen gardens, and spoil the best wall-fruit. 

 There is, however, some compensation for this mischief: a kind 

 of broth is made from them, and used as a remedy for pulmonary 

 complaints. This kind of snail is occasionally eaten by the French ; 

 but it is not held by them in the same estimation as the Apple- 

 Snail. Dr. Gray says that the glassmen at Newcastle, once a-year, 

 have a snail-feast, and that they generally collect the snails them- 

 selves in the fields and hedges the Sunday before feast-day." 



Nor are the author's considerations on the subject confined either 

 to the scientific or the utilitarian, if feasting on snails can be thus 

 designated. He sometimes soars into the regions of poetry; or, 

 as lie calls it, the aesthetical. The snail could never secure a footing 

 on Mount Parnassus, he tells us, but " we may enter the realms of 

 phantasy and we shall find it among those intruders which had to 

 be chased from the cradle of the fairy-queen." Homer did not 

 disdain to use the snail's shell as a helmet for belligerent frogs, in 

 his " mock heroic poem." " The most imposing appearance," the 

 author tells us, " which the animal has made in literature," is to be 

 found in Goethe's " wild vision of the Walpurgis Night," when, 

 on the top of the Harz mountains, " an adventurous and preter- 

 naturally sensitive snail," " detected the presence and unmasked the 

 incognito of not less a person than Mephistopheles himself." And 

 the author gives us the quotation, describing the occurrence, which 

 leaves no doubt that the snail must have been very preternaturally 

 sensitive, for it was able to smell out the identity of the Evil One 

 with its tentacles ! 



However, we do not suppose the author had any intention to 

 press the great German poet into the service of science, so we will 

 let that pass. 



The first volume of the work treats, as we have said, of land 

 and fresh-water shells ; the second, of the marine molluscs, com- 

 prising the Brachiopoda and part of the Conchifera. In the third, 

 the Conchifera are concluded, and the Solenoconchia and part of the 

 Gasteropoda treated. The fourth coniinues the description of the 

 great group Gasteropoda, which is concluded in the fifth volume, 

 where also an account will be found of the higher molluscs, the 

 Pteropoda and Cephalopoda. 



* Vol. i., p. 183. 



