LECTURE XL 
167 
natural state was unfortunately lost, and the figure 
accompanying the description of that author was 
executed from a specimen long preserved in spi- 
rits, and which had totally lost its natural appear- 
ance. It therefore, of course, gives no distinct 
idea of what it was meant to elucidate. From the 
time of Rumphius the animal seems to have re- 
mained in great obscurity, till it was lately again 
described with accuracy by a French writer, and a 
figure, said to be faithful, accompanies the de- 
scription, and may be found in the voluminous con- 
tinuation ofBuffon’s Natural History by Sonnini 
and others. 
The animals of most of the remaining Linnsean 
genera of the Univalve Shells are more or less al- 
lied in shape to the common Snail, which is itself 
allied in a similar manner to the naked or shell- 
less animals called Slugs, belonging to the genus 
Limax among the naked Mollusca. 
Instead of taking up the time appointed for 
this lecture with a mere enumeration of the Lin- 
naean genera of Shells, I shall content myself with 
observing that they are admirably constituted on 
the principles of true science, and are to be re- 
garded as a very high improvement -on all former 
plans of -arrangement 5 but that they are to be 
