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    Dec. 27, 1851.] ®fpi> fttmtt* 1237

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    POPULAR HISTORY OF MOLLUSCA. a Popular H...

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    <;n<"r . Notii'ii; i>r,'l'nlex of Minili...

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    Dec. 27, 1851.] ®Fpi> Fttmtt* 1237

    Dec . 27 , 1851 . ] ® fpi > fttmtt * 1237

    Popular History Of Mollusca. A Popular H...

    POPULAR HISTORY OF MOLLUSCA . a Popular History of the Mollusca ; comprising a familiar account of their classification , instincts , habits , and of the growth and distinguishing characteristics of their shells . By Mary lloberts . Reeve and Benham . Alth ough not by many degrees so good a book as it mig ht have been , this is , nevertheless , a book both useful and instructive . Compiled chiefly from , the writings of Lovell Reeve , and illustrated with some fifty or sixty admirable coloured engravings of the mollusca in their shells , it will form a pleasant introduction to the study of Conchology , and interest the lover of Natural History .

    But Miss Mary Roberts does not possess the true secret of writing popular science , or else she keeps that secret marvellously well . It is not by the introduction of rhapsodies and some very prosaic poetry that Conchology is to be made popular ; but by the familiar exposition of its leading principles and facts , aided by the interest excited in everything relating to the habits and instincts of the creatures . The best parts of her book are not the ambitious passages ; but such as this , for example : —

    " The cowry can even form a new shell when fully crown—a phenomenon which modern naturalists long hesitated to receive ; but which is now proved beyond doubt by Lieutenant Hankey , who was himself an eye-witness of the curious fact , and who relates that he has seen the shell of a cowry , when too small for its occupant , begin to crack and swell ; at which time some powerful solvent or decomposing fluid had evidently been distributed over its outer surface by that all-important instrument , the mantle ; for it gradually became more dull in colour and thin

    in substance , till at length the shell disappeared , and the cowry was rendered homeless . Short time , however , elapsed before the creature set to work , and secreted a thin layer of glutinous matter , which in a few days assumed the fragile consistency of shelllac . The dwelling then rapidly progressed , till at length it was consolidated into one of those beautifully spotted shells , which equally ornament the ¦ widow ' cottage , cherished as remembrances of her sailor boy , and the costly cabinets of the shell collector . "

    Apropos of this process , it might have served to impress it on the mind , had its analogy with the reparation of bone in the cases of fracture been pointed out in a sentence or two . It is by such facts and such analogical illustrations that works are made popular ; not by rhetoric and " wondering . " What are we to understand by the concluding sentence of this account of the FORMATION OF SHELLS .

    " But how , it may be asked , are tho shells of the mollusca constructed ; and what are their component parts ? Shells may be regarded as epidermal in their character , being formed upon the surface of a filmy , cloak-like organ , called a mantle , and which answers to the true skin of other animals . A slimy juice , consisting of a membranaccoua tissue , consolidated by an admixture of carbonate of lime , exudes from the glands of this important organ , and , thickening in successive layers , becomes hardened and moulded on the body ; at ( irst simple and unadorned , but subsequently embellished according to the taste or inclination of the occupant . "

    Is it meant seriously that the mollusk builds its house according to its own architectural caprice or " taste" ? It would seem so from that . sentence , and from this which occurs subsequently : — '' Not less wonderful is the gradual increase and development of shelly structures , with gradations of form and hue , and architectural embellishments -which occur at different periods . It even seems us if the animal inhabitant , in progressing from youth to full maturity , acquired new ideas , with skill to embody them . " The , notion , it must be confessed , is extravagant , and should at ; least be stated as a "fancy , " if not HerioriHly intended . Wo touch here ; upon the defects of the book .

    Wo do not forget its merits in so doing ; they an ; , as we have already intimated , such as to make ; the book both attractive and useful , and we commend it as such . One extract more is all we can find room for : ¦—¦ UKOURAl'II Y Ol' SUKI . l . S . " Cones , which are mostly inhabitants of deep water , are nearly all tropical ; their vivid colours

    Hcem in accordance with tin ; aspect ol vegetation in Hiinny climes . (! owries also belong to the name lati tudes , with the exception of one or two . small grooved species that are Vound on our coasts . New Holland and the l ' ucilie have each their species , and the cowry l > antherina is brought in great abundance from the Red Sea . ( Jyinbiums and melons are found in Australia ; but the greater number are from the coast of Africa , where ; they burrow in the sand at low water , and live mostly concealed from view .

    " Beautiful volutes strew the shores of Australia , New Guinea , and New Zealand ; a few species , those of the Brazil- ; : vul Ceylon , Timor , and Western Africa . Peci . 'iir as regards th > ir place of abode , they rarel y inhabit 1 culitics where mitres abound . In the Philippine islands , where Mr . Cuming collected between two and three hundred species , scarcely a volute was to be seen . " Marginellae are mostly found within the tropics ; while the terebra ? chiefly inhabit the eastern world , and are peculiar to warm temperatures , one species only reaching so far north as the Mediterranean . Olives are exclusively confined within tropical regions ; and the nassse are equally restricted to the southern and tropical portions of the globe .

    " The magilus especially affects the shores of the Ked Sea ; the harps those of Ceylon , the Mauritius , and the Philippine islands . Cassides , or helmets , are found in the same localities as the magilus , with the addition of Ceylon and the West Indies . Struthiolaria inhabit the shores of New Holland ; and the finest specimens of rostellaria are from C hina and the Moluccas . Others , unlike the restricted tribes , are generally distributed throughout the globe . Strombi are found in places the most dissimilar , such as the West Indies and Australia , Ceylon , and the Red Sea . Tritons equally reward the labours of conchologists , whether searching for them , in the United States or the Cape of Good Hope , along the shores of New Holland , or those of the Moluccas .

    " Cancellariae , chitons , fissurellae , and many beautiful genera are associated with the memory of the Incas in Peru ; they also bring . to mind the Gulf of Panama , where pearl fisheries abound ; C hina , with its pagodas and mandarins , the classic shores of the Mediterranean , and the Eastern Archipelago , for such are their favourite localities . " The Gulf of Tarentum and the coast of Naples and Sard inia afford varieties of porcelain shells , with pectins of all hues . The island of Sardinia is celebrated for a fine species of white oyster ; and Corsica , Majorca , and Minorca , for the pinna marina , the silkworm of the ocean . Bright yellow a ncillarise and orange-brown eburnse are found on the shores of New Holland and Japan ; and the solitary concholepas , resembling a compressed cornucopia , has alone been

    discovered at Peru . " There is scarcely , on the contrary , any limit to the geographical distribution of the neritinae , save in the Arctic regions , and cold temperate zones . The genus is represented by a humble but very delicately painted specimen on the shores of Britain ; and numerous varieties abound in the West Indies ^ and throughout the great continent of America . This extensive genus is equally diffused in South Africa and the Eastern world . Magnificent specimens were collected by Mr . Cuming in the Philippines , in Sumatra also , and other islands of the Oriental Archipelago . is considerabl

    " The range of the helix putris y extended , and comprises a great variety of soil and climate , from dark Norwegian forests to . sunny Italy , creeping at its slow and stealthy pace throughout the United States and Newfoundland , Jamaica , Tranquebar , and the Marianne Islands . The margin of pools and streams , where aquatic birds resort to bathe and dress their feathers , are his favourite haunts ; hence the dispersion of the helix putris is readily accounted for . The eggs , being generally allixed to the steins and leaves of water plants , become attached to the leathers of such birds as resort among them , and are in consequence widely disseminated .

    " The helix aspeisa , one of the most common among our larger land shells , is dispersed in like manner through places the most dissimilar . St . Helena and the foot of Chimborazo , in South America , reveal its olive-coloured shell , as also the citron groves of Cayenne . 15 ut with this difference , it is conjectured , that the specii h being considered nutritious , were imported from casual ships ; their power of . sustaining life without air or iiourishnunt during the ; longest voyages being equalled only by their ready assimilation with opposite climates . "

    <;N<"R . Notii'ii; I>R,'L'Nlex Of Minili...

    <; n < "r . Notii'ii ; i > r , 'l'nlex of Miniliery fnnn the Olden 'ftme . Alier : i MS . of tin- Hi . v (< M'iil . li (/ Viitury . 'l ' i ; ui « lal « 'il lioin Mir < icniiiiu of AmkiisI . lla- < n . J « iliii (; ii ; i | ini ; in . H ' mnen of Chi islimiili / n . ieinjilili 1 / fur . lets of l'iilij and ( 'limit t j . \\ y . luliii Kn \ : m , i ;; h . Smith anil Klclei Aliee Leitmotif-. A Kiiiiy Talc . l ! y Hit ; auUioiviis of Olive , 'I'he Itetidof the . I ' amily . tir , Cliiipimnii and Hall . The He / miner ' s . lliiianiiek and J ' olilirul I ' eur Iti . uk fur IH . > 2 . A ) lol I ami Jour ; .

    Kvkrv Christmas dlill . Hooks abound , bright us ( , 1 k- , bolly which h .-iiifjjs over the picture frame , and forgotten as quickly . Many of these hooka arc within the reach of long purses only ; many ol them are more modest , in their claims , and from them we . select lour a . s appropriate presents . We first , present them to y i a"d you will present tbeni to others . Noricu ; or , 'Vales of NYiriibcry has a quaint , mediaeval elegance of aspect which not , inaptly prepareH tho mind lor itn quiet < juaint contents . The

    burgher life of Niirnberg , the reverence inspired by-Albert Durer , the pervading passion of Art , the poetical guild of Meister singers , with their Hans Sachs , these and other glimpses of mediaeval Germany are displayed in a not very dexterously contrived framework , but are portrayed with an earnestness which carries you on . Not Life and its tumults , its impassioned movements , its grand aspiratings , its chequered incidents , light deepening into som bre shadows , darkness clearing into noonnothing of the heights and depths of Poetry and Fiction meets you in these pages ; but something still , ancient , remote , placid , something of the calmness of sunset , something , too , of the garrulity

    of old age . It is no more like Fiction than one of those old German towns is like the mighty Mother City . Yet who that has passed a pleasant day ( a week would be purgatory ) in such an old town , does not remember how charmed he was with the place , its quiet , and its people ? One c annot say those people were the greatest one has seen ; yet assuredly they were not the least memorable—kind , placid souls f with simple , naive manners and imperfect teeth ! Very much what they are among men this Norica is among books . The professed novel reader will remorselessly yawn over its simple pages ; the reader who has some culture and less need of stimulus will not despise it .

    The Women of Christianity Miss Kayanagh introduces to us , will be great favourites with the " Mothers of England . " The book is excellent as a gift book , and must be popular among the large class of patrons who seek above all things " good " books . Let us add that while it equals " good " books in the material of which it is composed , it surpasses them in the treatment of that material , being free from offensive prudery and bigotry , and the cant of " goodness . " It presents us with biographical sketches of the women who , in the early days of Christianity , gained for themselves a name and a place beside the Saints and Martyrs , — it then touches on the civilizing influences of woman during the Middle Ages , with kit-cat sketches of several illustrious women—eifter these

    come the women ( better known ) of the seventeenth century , from Madame de Chantat to Lady Rachel llussel ; and the women of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries close the series . There is a mass of biographical material skilfully arranged here , which will be new to most readers and pleasant to all . We hare nothing but praise to give Miss Kavanagh for the style in which she has executed her task . The objections we should make , if our present mood were critical , would be directed against what is almost inevitable in the

    plan of the work itself , viz ., a monotony arising from the compression of all the incidents of the lives into one mould—the disregard of the human feminine traits that arc not illustrative of piety and charity . A pious charitable woman is undoubtedly a graceful sight ; but , after all , it is the pious woman we love , not the abstract ( futility . Miss Kavauagh has not made us fall in love with her Women of Christianity ; and the secret we take to be precisely that which makes every honest boy righteously hate the " good boy" of his story book .

    A wiser and a truer moral pervades the fairy tale of Alice , licarmont , which has only one drawback , and that , a drawback only in Southron ears , viz ., the prodigality of Scotch dialect . A new-born babe is spirited away by the Klves , and for a while loses in Fairyland the strong human sympathies and affections which build up a nature higher than that , of Fairies . Hut by degrees the love of her mother awakens the dormant sympathies ; humanity begins to live and move a living thing in her bosom , and as it . does so her eyes art ; opened to the false , cold , hollow brilliancy of Fairyland : she learns to see it not . as it seems , but as it is . All the fair wood , alive with Dickering leaves and waving plants , had become a forest , ot bare lifeless

    trees . Tin ; foliage had dropped ofl" the houghs , the flowers bad withered when ; they grew . There was no beauty , no pleasure therein ; nothing but . discordant voices and a dead blank of sight and sound . The banquet hall had faded into ruins ; the daintius were only ho many withered leaves ; tin ; golden tables nothing but fungi and ugly incrustations of blasted trees ; the # ay draperies , mere spider webs , flittering to and fro in the gusty wind ; the ; Queen of the Fairies , a loathly , ghastly hag ; the rest , a court of withered , worn-looking creatures , that in their uncomely age imitated the frolics of youth . This was I ' airyland when the ( fliiiiii ) iir was gone . Home , lit , up with the Nplendours of affection , won her to its nobler hearth . In not tho idea pretty ?—and how CHHentiully

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 27, 1851, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27121851/page/17/