Notices of New Books. 4759 



From this citation we have purposely omitted irrelevant references : 

 confining ourselves to Forbes and Hanley's recent work, we find that 

 six of their species are thrown overboard without hesitation, and 

 w T e may add that four more species, zonaria, rudissima, jugosa and 

 neglecta of other authors, are sent to keep them company. The 

 author proceeds : — " To describe the varieties enumerated above, 

 which are the pseudo-species of authors, would be to say that the 

 organs of all, both internal and external, do not vary in the slightest 

 degree in form : the only differences are modifications of colour, size, 

 and in the striae, depending entirely on habitat." 



Thus, we are told, Forbes and Hanley devote nineteen pages of 

 letter-press and twenty-three figures to a species which " does not vary 

 in the slightest degree in form" We have already said we take up 

 the book to study, not to criticise, and we make no attempt to gainsay 

 an assertion made so unhesitatingly ; but a conclusion certainly forces 

 itself upon us that these conflicting authors are unintentionally and 

 unwittingly making sad havoc of our Natural History : no two books, 

 written in the worst spirit of dogmatic controversy, of editorial heart- 

 burning, ever contradicted each other more flatly, or advocated more 

 opposite views, than these which, like a pair of turtle-doves, wing 

 their amiable way from the same nest : never was criticism so crush- 

 ingly severe as Mr. Clark's passing commentary on this dozen species 

 of Littorina. 



The truth of the matter lies hid in the fact that naturalists are not 

 agreed as to " what to observe : " we have good books on " how to 

 observe ;" but unless we know "what" to observe it is of little moment 

 that we learn " how" to observe it. The difficulty experienced by the 

 compilers of w r orks on the Mollusca is that they have to consult two 

 classes of authorities, first, the conchologists, secondly, the mala- 

 cologists — classes which are made to represent two different sciences, 

 and it seems to us that we shall never arrive at just conclusions until 

 these sciences merge in one. Entomologists experience a somewhat 

 similar difficulty in the larva and imago, but — and, as it appears to us, 

 wisely — avail themselves of the characters of both, in order to attain 

 just conclusions. We do not say that the larva and imago are in any 

 respect the analogues of the animal and shell ; but the naturalist, in 

 both cases, is presented by Nature with two classes of phenomena: is 

 it wise of him to ignore either ? From every page of Mr. Clark's 

 volume we learn, as clearly as though printed in scarlet, that he con- 

 siders the shell of no importance whatever in the study of the Mol- 

 lusca: he utterly ignores it in the larger divisions — he utterly ignores 



