Bibliographical Notices. 345 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. Monographia Heliceorum Viventium. Auctore Ludovico Pfeiffer, Dr. Leipsic : London, Williams and Norgate. After the lapse of many years, this long-announced publication has at length made its appearance. The well-known lengthened researches of the author, and his personal inspection of the typical specimens in the chief museums and more important private collec-tions of Europe, have excited a more than ordinary feeling of interest respecting it, — a sentiment which the profound knowledge of his sub-ject displayed by him in his intercourse with conchologists during his recent visit to England has by no means tended to allay. It is solely by that undivided attention to one particular branch of na-tural history, which has been devoted to the investigation of the Snails by Dr. Pfeiffer, that the unravelling of that tangled mass of synonyms, which the presumptuous ignorance of tyros and the care-less indolence of compilers have alike generated and fostered, can suc-cessfully be attempted ; and the author's comparison of types and frequent correspondence with other writers upon conchology com-bine in giving a stamp of authority to his labours. The first part only of this monograph of Helices is as yet before the public : we learn however from the accompanying prospectus that the remainder will be issued at no distant interval, and that the entire work will occupy two octavo volumes. In 160 pages are contained diagnoses of between four and five hundred species of shells ; the total number intended to be described is 2100. This is an immense increase to our knowledge of this family, the aggregate species of the several genera included by our author under Helix amounting in the pages of Lamarck to 224, of the second edition of the ' Animaux sans Ver-tebres' by Deshayes to 536, and in Ferussac's great work to 573. The following genera are regarded by Dr. Pfeiffer as coming within the limits of his work : Anostoma, Tomigerus, Streptaxis, Odontostoma {Proserpina), Helix (including Carocolla and Nanina), Bulimus, Acha-tina, Pupa, Cylindrella, Daudebardia, Vitrina, Succinea, Balea, Tor-natellina, and Clausilia. As no less than 1132 species belong to Helix proper, a very elaborate sectional arrangement is proposed for faci-litating their determination ; without which assistance indeed, the toil of searching through some hundreds of descriptions in ascertain-ing the name of a single specimen, would be insufferably tedious. And yet this praiseworthy subdivision is neglected in the majority of conchological monographs which are annually appearing ! The language in which the results of the author's observation and reflection during a period of ten years (as he informs us) is commu-nicated to his readers, is that universal medium of communication among naturalists, the Latin tongue ; not sparingly used for brief diagnoses, betraying too often the writer's inability to express him-self satisfactorily and lucidly in it, followed by longer notes in his vernacular explanatory of his meaning, but written throughout in that classic dialect, without the interpolation of a single word of his
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