1 8 82.] American Work on Recent Molhtsca in 1SS1. 875 



higher divisions of the mollusca, both recent and fossil, and the 

 descriptions and figures of all the recent species," etc., etc. We 

 have hitherto refrained from comment upon the manner in which 

 the performance compares with the promises above quoted from 

 the second page of the cover. This, both from our wholly 

 friendly feeling towards the industrious author, and from the hope 

 that as the work advanced, the quality of it (once off unfamiliar 

 ground like the Cephalopods) might improve. The fourth vol- 

 ume has now begun to appear, and it seems to us that it is time 

 to vindicate malacology in this country from the reproach of 

 quietly accepting such a work as this as a praiseworthy or repre- 

 sentative product of American science. 



The work is an utter failure if we judge it by its own pros- 

 pectus. In the plain edition the figures are largely unidentifiable. 

 In the (very badly) colored edition they are somewhat more 

 recognizable, though we had not realized that so many blue and 

 crimson gasteropods existed as are there depicted. The expense 

 so far for a bound copy would be about $65, a sum sufficient to 

 obtain quite a little library in itself, and at this rate the claim of 

 a " moderate price " is quite unjustified. There is not a figure in 

 the entire work, so far, by which it would be possible to discrim- 

 inate between critical species, several of the figures are wrongly 

 numbered, the " descriptions " are inadequate to a painful degree^ 

 and contain, in many cases, no diagnostic characters. Were 

 diagnoses of "all the genera" of recent and fossil mollusks really 

 furnished, even if merely copied from the originals without con- 

 firmation, the work would still be valuable, but that this is not the 

 case in the families treated, can be determined by any reader. 



In general, an uncharitable critic might be disposed to say that 

 the author, when he found a species of which he could not copy 

 a figure, " lumped " it with that which he " guessed " was nearest 

 hke it, or if he could not identify it with anything in the collec- 

 tion at Philadelphia, he catalogued it with the " spurious " species. 

 We do not assert that Mr. Tryon has done anything of this kind, 

 but we do assert that the results of his work, in whatever way he 

 •arrived at them, are little better than they would have been in the 

 above hypothetical case. 



Little care or research seems to have been devoted either to 

 hunting up the locality where species not in the monographs were 

 described or in figuring unfigured species which were easily 



