NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 79 



are necessary to a knowledge of the Mollusca, but we so 

 frequently find the study of one branch naturally, and necessarily 

 a museum one, in the ascendancy, or contrariwise an ana- 

 tomical or physiological one, which is more adapted to the 

 laboratory and less to museum purposes. Mr. Woodward has 

 succeeded in his twofold task, and from his precise and yet con- 

 strained method the reader can at once see that he could have 

 filled a second or even a third volume, had opportunity been 

 afforded him. The zoological literature of the future will 

 probably be that of the big volumes rather than that of the com- 

 pressed handbooks, for the results of bionomical observations 

 and evolutionary conclusions have now ceased to be the points 

 for footnotes and have become the subject-matter of chapters ; 

 and this is the charm of modern zoology which our author has 

 fully shown in these pages. Thus we are told : " The mottled 

 markings on the shell of the common Garden Snail play on a 

 small scale the same part that they do in the Giraffe, and serve 

 to make the wearer less conspicuous in the shadow of vegetation. 

 The dun colour of the Desert Snail (Helix desertorum), like that 

 of the other desert animals, harmonizes with the prevailing tint 

 of the habitat. The arboreal Ariophanta dohertyi, of Sumatra, 

 is of a delicate green colour, and almost invisible among the 

 foliage on which it dwells. Many of the Slugs, by their 

 colouring and markings, are rendered inconspicuous in their 

 natural surroundings, such as Limax arborum on trees, Geo- 

 malacus (the Kerry Slug) on lichen-covered rocks, &c." It is 

 these observations which give to shells an interpretation in 

 nature, apart from their interest in the conchological cabinet. 



" Classification," " Geological History," and "Present His- 

 tory and Distribution " are also adequately described, and we, 

 at least, know no book where the molluscan story is so fully 

 told, and where so much information can be obtained in a 

 small compass. We wish, however, that if a bibliography was 

 impossible by exigencies of space, some bibliographical references 

 could have been added to the text, so that the less informed 

 reader could more fully follow up many of the interesting and 

 important facts and observations referred to. Mr. Woodward 

 has told us so much that we would fain know more. 



