876 American Work on Recent Mollusca in 188 1. [November, 



within the author's reach. Indeed, we have noticed, so far, but 

 one original figure in the whole work, though there may be more. 

 Of a species described in the Proceedings (1865, p. 64) of his 

 own society, the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and 

 of which the type is accessible to all students in the National 

 Museum at Washington, but a few hours away from his home, 

 Mr. Tryon says, " no diagnosis of this species has been pub- 

 lished, it is merely mentioned in Carpenter's 2d Report, and fig- 

 ured in Kuster from a drawing furnished by W. H. Dall." This 

 " drawing " was one of the plates of Alaska mollusks distributed 

 by the writer in 1879, but of which the text is still in MS. 

 owing to uncontrollable circumstances. 



The merits of the work are those pertaining to any catalogue 

 which brings together scattered material, and would have been 

 greater had not an illjudged attempt been made to combine spe- 

 cies not autoptically known to the author, and of the distinctness 

 of which he could not therefore speak with authority. It cer- 

 tainly will not be, to a student requiring a real " manual " of the 

 subject, comparable in value to works like Bronn and Keferstein's 

 Malacozoa, for instance, and others of which the combined cost 

 would be less than that of the k\v parts of Mr. Tryon's work 

 already issued. 



It is somewhat refreshing to turn from the preceding work 

 to another, which though not American in authorship or publica- 

 tion, is nevertheless of so much importance to American, as 

 well as other students of malacology as to render its mention 

 here not inappropriate. I refer to Dr. Paul Fischer's Manuel de 

 Conchyliologie (Paris, F. Savy, 188 1-2, fasc.1-4. To contain six 

 or seven fasciculi of seven signatures each, 400 cuts in the text 

 and 24 plates with 600 figures), of which (to May, 1882) four 

 parts have appeared. The subscription (payable in advance) for 

 the whole work, is twenty-four francs. The typographical execu- 

 tion is of excellent quality, the illustrations in the text clear, and 

 many of them new; the form, medium octavo, is convenient ; and 

 of the execution so far, more need not be said than that it is 

 promptly up to date in matters of research, and in every way 

 worthy of its distinguished author. 



"Common Sea Shells of California," by Josiah Keep, A.M., Ala- 

 meda, Cal. This little work prepared and published by its author, 

 a teacher in the Alameda High School, contains sixty-four pages 



