1876.] 
Notices of Books . 
119 
should — by a parity of reasoning — refuse to admit all that have 
been captured in Ireland or the Channel Islands. 
We are glad to find that the author speaks somewhat con- 
temptuously of the conchology of the past. We have sometimes, 
in quiet nooks where ancient ideas still linger, met with exten- 
sive collections of shells, duly labelled and arranged, and carefully 
preserved from dust and damage. But the collector did not in 
the least trouble himself with the nature, structure, and functions 
of the creatures who somewhile tenanted his shining specimens. 
To understand them was no part of his object. Such a pursuit 
is not a Science, but merely a “ fancy,” and may be placed upon 
the same level as collecting postage-stamps. But, as Mr. 
Harting well remarks, “ the conchologist has given place to the 
malacologist, who, not content with examining, describing, and 
naming the shell independently of its inhabitant, curiously 
questions the latter as to its internal structure.” 
The author’s object has been to give clear and correct informa- 
tion concerning our indigenous land and fresh-water shells, 
without being alarmingly technical or systematic. He gives a 
succinct account of the internal structure of the Mollusca, and 
notices their peculiarities of respiration, locomotion, and repro- 
duction. Their classification is briefly treated, and the reader is 
then asked to accompany the author, in spirit, in shell-hunting 
rambles “ over the London clay, over the chalk down, and 
through the moist beech-woods of Sussex,” — a method of im- 
parting instruction which may perhaps be pronounced unsys- 
tematic, but is certainly more attractive than a description of 
genera and species in their due order. The illustrations have 
been “ carefully drawn and coloured from recent specimens,” 
and not, according to a too common practice, copied from other 
books. We think this little manual well calculated to attract 
votaries to this somewhat neglected branch of natural history. 
The Dawn of Life; being the History of the Oldest-Known 
Fossil Remains. By J. W. Dawson, F.R.S., &c. London: 
Hodder and Stoughton. 
We have here a monograph of the Eozoon Canadense, the most 
ancient relic of the animal world hitherto discovered, or, as the 
author more magniloquently expresses it, “ the earliest known 
representative on our planet of those wondrous powers of animal 
life which culminate and unite themselves with the spirit-world 
in man himself.” The subject is of profound interest to the 
geologist and biologist, involving as it does “ the opening of a 
new era in geological science,” and pushing the first origin of 
animal life backwards in time for untold ages. But that it 
