look back from our present vantage ground and magnify its defects by a comparison with modern classifications: we are in candour to place ourselves behind its author, and looking forward, say how far his efforts have been useful or quickening.* Standing thus, we trust to offend none of his admirers when we admit that there is nothing in its principle of a novel character: the soft mollusca were previously recognized and better assorted by Charlton; and every one of the sections, and, if we mistake not, of the genera also, of the shelled tribes had been already recognized. It labours under the censure of having too small regard to the animal, a censure in some degree just, for assuredly more was known of these than the definitions of the "Systema" would lead us to suppose; and it had still less regard to the position of the groups in reference to their organical affinities. It often associates species of dissimilar habits; and species are found in almost every genus at variance with the character of this, and where consequently the student ought not to have sought for them. The superiority of it lies in its simplicity; in the regulated subordination of all its parts; in the admirable sagacity with which the families or genera are limited; in the assumption of more stable characters for these, and for the clear distinct manner in which they are applied; in the suitableness of its nomenclature; in the invention of trivial names which gave a facility in writing hitherto unknown, and was a welcome relief to the memory; in the conciseness of the specific characters and the skill with which those characters were chosen ; in the regular indication of the stations which the species occupy on the globe; and in the beauty of the more extended descriptions, and the peculiar felicity of language in which the thoughts suggested by any remarkable structure in the species under review are conveyed to us.§ That merits of this kind should secure him *The first edition of the Systema Nature was published in 1735, but 1758 is properly the year which gave birth to his conchological system, when the 10th edition was published. It was perfected in 1766. + See some good remarks by Macleay on this subject in the Hor. Entom. part ii. p. 242, &c.-Mr. Gray has acutely remarked that Linnæus "referred all the animals inhabiting shells to five different genera, viz. Limax, Ascidia, Anomia, Clio, and Sepia,”—each of which is now the type of the modern classes of the mollusca,- the Limax of Gasteropoda-the Ascidia of Conchifera-the Anomia of Brachiopoda-the Clio of Pteropoda--and the Sepia of the Cephalopoda.-Syn. Brit. Mus. 50, edit. 1842. See Bose, Coquilles, Introd. i. 30; Cuv. Hist. des Sc. Nat. iii. 24, 25. The definitions of the orders Mollusca and Testacea might be quoted in illustration of this remark :-"MOLLUSCA nuda, brachiata, vagantur pleraque per maria, cœlo resplendentia, tanquam totidem lucernis tenebricosum illuminant abyssum phosphorea, ut quod est inferius, sit tanquam superius." something more than approbation was natural: there was much excellence in it which prejudice or jealousy only could not see, and which folly alone would have rejected; and while every collector and amateur found it easy to be understood, ready in practice, and neat in nomenclaturing their cabinets, their pursuit assumed the garb of science when they could tell the scorner that they were following the steps, and had the sanction, of a man whose genius has justly won him a place in the first rank of those whom succeeding ages continue to venerate for the good they have done in the promotion of useful knowledge. While the eyes of almost all were turned to this northern luminary for light to guide them in their pursuit, or as an object by barking at which a few drew notice on their littleness, Jussieu of Paris, the admirer of Linnæus' genius and industry, and his correspondent, was explaining to his select but few disciples the principles of what has been commonly called the "Natural System." Jussieu's profound studies were confined to botany, but he had colleagues and contemporaries who attempted their application to conchology, and whose want of success is to be ascribed mainly to the meagreness of the anatomy of the Mollusca then attained, to the fewness of the observations made on the living species, and in part also to the imperfection of the views of the authors. Daubenton, the colleague of Buffon, so early as 1743, insisted on a knowledge of the animal as necessary to form a natural classification of shells and in 1756, Guettard, who was the personal friend of Jussieu, not only gave his sanction to this opinion, but showed its practicability and excellence by defining, from the peculiarities of the animal and shell combined, a considerable number of the univalves, comprehending among these, in evident agreement with their relations, though contrary to general use, the slugs, the Aplysia, and the Bullæa. But the fullest attempt of this kind was made by Adanson, whose work on Senegal was published some years before Linnæus had given the last revision to his system. Impelled by an indomitable enthusiasm, Adanson visited Senegal, under many disadvantages, to examine and describe the natural productions of a tropical climate; and for this purpose he made very extensive collections in every department of nature, but of his great work the first volume only, containing the outline of his travels and his account of the -"TESTACEA mollusca domiporta, calcareaque domuncula nobilitata, calcifica, et ipsa sæpe calcivora, insectis opposita specierum numero, magna Naturæ ludentis varietate multiplicata."-Syst. Nat. 1069. shells, was ever given to the public. The character of this volume has risen with the progress of the science, and it is more valued by the conchologist of the present day than it was by the contemporaries of its author. He had some personal peculiarities-too visible in his writings-which could not fail to hurt his popularity: an austere temperament which caused him to treat his fellow-labourers with contemptuous acerbity,*—a mind that would neither bend to nor treat with respect the prejudices as he deemed them of his age,—an unflinching severity in criticising the writings of others, and a pertinacious tenacity of his own views,-while some barbarisms he attempted to introduce into the nomenclature of conchology repelled the naturalists of a too nice taste, and the very extent of his requirements from those who claimed. to be naturalists operated against him, for it was not to be supposed that mere collectors or virtuosos were to enter on so difficult a path, or would be willing to allow themselves to be pushed aside as idlers, and put without the pale of the scientific circle. That very beauty, he exclaims, which by its variety has attracted the regards of men to shells has become an obstacle to their knowledge. "La coquille seule dépositaire de cette riche parure, a fait mépriser l'animal auquel elle servoit de couverture, et est devenue seule l'objet de l'admiration de quelques naturalistes. Epris, comme les curieux, de la beauté frappante de ses couleurs, ils n'ont pas jugé que l'habitant fût digne de leurs recherches, et le difficulté de se le procurer à chaque instant, n'a pas peu contribué à augmenter leur dédain. Ils se sont donc bornés à l'examen des coquilles, ils n'en ont considéré que le forme, celle de son ouverture, ou le nombre de ses pièces; c'est d'elle seule qu'ils ont voulu tirer leurs caractères primitifs et distinctifs de-là cette foule de systèmes aussi peu satisfaisans les uns que les autres."+ "In the Garden (the Botanic Garden of Paris) I have occasionally met with Mr. Adanson, whose knowledge in botany would procure him great reputation, were he less a slave to paradox and pedantry. He generally accosted me with some attack on Linnæus, sometimes calling him grossly ignorant and illiterate; and then, when I have ventured to quote Philosophia Botanica as a proof of the contrary, abusing him as scholastic."-SIR JAMES E. SMITH, Tour on the Continent, i. 126; and see a translation of Cuvier's interesting Memoir of Adanson in the Edinb. New. Phil. Journ. iii. 1, et seq. Adanson compares his contemporary conchologists to Scipio and Lælius, who were wont, for lack of other amusement, to pick up, like children, the pretty shells which were met with in their strolls along the Sicilian shores. "Ils n'ont traité cetta matière que comme un jeu, parce qu'ils l'ont travaillée sans soin et sans peine," &c.-Hist. des Coquil. pref. vii. Hist. des Coquillages, pref. v. At a season when " Systems" were all in vogue, Adanson, with characteristic boldness, declared himself their enemy as being worse than useless, fit only to amuse triflers, certain to lead to error and alienate us from true views of the objects in question, and so easy of invention to boot that several equally good might be made by one of common experience and capacity. The history of conchology had already offered too many examples of the truth of this assertion, and he was not slack to give additional specimens in its illustration. But notwithstanding his philippic against them, Adanson, in some measure, forgot his own principles, and was little less of a systematist than those were whom he censured. Shell-fish were, according to him, distinguishable in the first place into 'Limaçons' and Conques;' the former were subdivided into univalves and operculated univalves, and the Conques into bivalves and multivalves; these primary families were still further divided into smaller groups from the position of the eyes in the Limaçons, and from the figure of the respiratory tubes in the Conques. Now it was a pure arbitrariness in him to fix upon the operculum as a part or organ of primary value, for there is nothing in its use or position to justify the choice, nor did he attempt, by any analysis, to show that it was a regulator of structure and habits; and it was equally arbitrary to divide the bivalves into two sections on the mere existence of a few additional pieces over the hinge, for these pieces were not proved to be an index to the animal's economy. But Adanson's services to conchology are very great,-of those its labourers who have passed in review we place him next to Lister. He has the merit of having altogether removed from the Testacea the Lepas and Balani, whose structure he saw was modelled after the type of another category; his interesting discovery of the Vermetus was a fine illustration of the shell being of itself useless as a character in natural history; and his knowledge of affinities was made evident by the acuteness which led him to approximate the Teredo to the Pholas. If not the first to point out the importance of the operculum, he was undoubtedly the first who knew its value as an index to natural relationship between genera; perhaps the first who was fully aware that the entireness or canaliculate formation of the aperture of the shell gave an insight into the habits. of the snail in regard to food; the first too to point out fully the influence of age and sex in altering the shape of the shell, and more especially of its aperture; the first to describe and delineate the animal tenant of many genera; and although his attention was exclusively directed to external characters, yet we are above all indebted to him for his strong advocacy of the maxim that the anatomy of the animal is the sole sure foundation of a rational arrangement which has in view the mutual affinities of the objects it attempts to classify, and to present them not fancifully commixed as they might be placed in a museum, but according to those characters which Nature itself has given them of affinity or dissemblance. "There is then," he says, " in shellfish something more to consider than their shells; the snail which tenants them ought to guide our methodical arrangements, to be our only regulator, since it is the principal part, that which gives to the exterior skeleton its form, size, hardness, colours, and all the other peculiarities in it which we admire. If we attentively examine this new and forgotten race, if we consider individually the members of it, we shall discover in their manners, in their actions, in their movements and manner of life, an infinitude of curious circumstances, of facts interesting and fitted to arrest the attention of every zealous and intelligent observer; we shall perceive in the organism of their bodies a great number of parts remarkable in their structure and use; and in entering into details we shall soon be compelled to grant that this study is no childish play, but as thorny and full of difficulties as any other in the wide range of natural history."* The example of Adanson was followed by Geoffroy who, in a history of the shells found in the vicinity of Paris, attempted to arrange them on the external anatomy of their animals; and by Müller, who described in the same manner the Mollusca of the north of Europe. The writings of Müller are still deservedly held in high estimation. They contain the descriptions of many novelties, and his descriptions of them, as well as of species previously known, are remarkable for their accuracy; they are thickly strewed with notices of the external anatomy and habits of those he had examined alive; and his style of writing is interesting, rising occasionally to eloquence. As an observer and teller of what he had observed, he claims a place among the first, but he was the discoverer of no fact in their structure or physiology of any consequence-we speak in reference to the Mollusca only; and his systematic efforts were limited and partial, although he sometimes drops a hint on the subject, which makes us almost believe that he was capable of better things, had he had courage to have made the attempt. In relation to the Mol* Lib. sup. cit. pref. x. + His Method, as detailed by himself, is as artificial as the Linnæan, and actually less in harmony with the animal organization. L L |