Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/81

Rh strength and size, it seems to have been amply furnished with weapons of defence.—Such was the strength and massiveness of its covering, that its remains are found comparatively entire in arenaceous rocks impregnated with iron, in which few other fossils could have survived."—p. 162.

Is it quite certain that Cephalaspis was a fish?

unpretendingly announced work of Mrs. Gray is fraught with the greatest interest to all who study Conchology. When this study first assumed a name and a place amongst the sciences, attention was only paid to the shell. The gay hues, the polished coats, and the various forms of the solid habitations, were criticised and studied; while the soft inhabitants which formed them were almost completely overlooked. The genera of animals which inhabit shells were reckoned only five in number by Linnaeus, nor were there many additions made to that number by his followers for a long period after his time. The celebrated Lamarck, however, saw the necessity of a more careful study of the molluscous animals, and formed a new arrangement of shells upon that basis. Taking advantage of the labours of his predecessors, as the celebrated and philosophic-minded Adanson and others, and of his cotemporaries, as Cuvier, &c, he established a system, which holds the first place in this study at the present day. Since the time of Lamarck many improvements have been made and much new information added to the stock already possessed by us. Various authors have paid attention to particular groups, and much valuable knowledge has been imparted by the naturalists attached to the various expeditions fitted out by different governments, especially the French. Their labours are valuable in the extreme, and the works in which they are published have been splendidly got up under the auspices of the governments which sent them forth. These works, however, though reflecting the highest credit on these governments, are so expensive, that they are accessible only to a few; and the figures of the molluscous animals given by other authors, are scattered over such a variety of scarce and costly works, that to the general student they are almost sealed books. To remedy this want, and to present at one view a continuous series of the interesting class of creatures called Mollusca, has been the object of Mrs. Gray in this valuable volume; and exceedingly well has she accomplished it. For