History of Conchology. 243 



as precious ornaments for museums, of the more remarkable of 

 which we have a particular account in his 12th chapter. In the 

 second part Bonanni describes each shell separately, noticing their 

 parts, form, colours, names, and the seas which they inhabit — In 

 the third part he propounds about 40 problems or hard questions, 

 annexing reasons or " an argument" to the dark and doubtful, by 

 which a ray of truth may be thrown on them, and they may be 

 made visible at least to the mental eye ; he shews that pearls cannot 

 be formed from dew, as Pliny would persuade us, that they are not 

 the voungbut a disease of conchs ; he explains why a shell applied to 

 the ear seems, by its murmurings, to lament its native sea ; inquires 

 into the causes of shells being more abundant in the sea than on the 

 land, and especially in the Indian Ocean, where they are also more 

 beautifully pictured ; why they are principally coloured on the ex- 

 terior ; wherefore they grow hard, seeing they are formed out of soft 

 water ; why they are twisted into many spires ; why their snails have 

 scarcely any diversity of members ; why they are destitute of teeth, 

 a heart, and bones ; why nature denies them bile, and a liver and 

 a spleen ; why they grow lean on the wane of the moon ; why they 

 are slow and stoltish ; why the juice of the Pholas is luminous at 

 night ; why among their various colours the cerulean is not to be 

 found ; and other such problems hitherto unargued or propounded, — 

 not omitting to inquire learnedly whether the Remora, that stayed 

 the ship sent from Periander on a cruel voyage to the Cape of 

 Gnidos, was actually the shell called in consequence the Venus-shell, 

 and " in regard whereof, the inhabitants of Gnidos doe honour and 

 consecrate the said Porcellane within their temple of Venus." — The 

 fourth and last part is occupied with the plates and figures describ- 

 ed in the second, distributed into three classes, viz. the univalves not 

 turbinate, the bivalves, and the turbinate univalves. 



This slight outline of Bonanni's book is all our space will permit 

 us to give, and is perhaps sufficient to enable the reader to appre- 

 ciate its value, and the character of the writer. He was a Jesuit, 

 with attainments and natural talents which, though respectable, 

 certainly do not raise him above the level of his age, — perhaps he 

 was under it, — better acquainted with the writings of his predeces- 

 sors than of his contemporaries, — with the tastes of a virtuoso rather 

 than of the man of science, skilful in all the vain logomachies of 

 the schoolmen, and willing to give a ready assent to every thin" 1 

 which had ancient authority in its favour, but jealous and distrust- 

 ful of ail that was novel, and of every discovery that would carry 

 knowledge forward. Hence we find his anatomy of shell-fish in- 



