Abstract
NATURALISTS have been divided into those of the field and those of the closet. The author of this monograph may be classed in the latter category; and he certainly shares the indefatigable industry of his countrymen. Such labour, however, when applied to subjects of natural history, sometimes tends to an excessive multiplication of species; and its utility is in that respect questionable. Professor Römer, in a critical examination of the species of Venus which he published in 1857, enumerated 145 species arranged in eight sub-genera. In the present work one only of these sub-genera is treated, and includes no less than 209 species. We may well ask, with Cicero, “Quousque tandem abuteris patientiâ nostrâ?” A common European species (Circe minima) is described in two sections under different names; and some of the author's new species seem to be merely the young of well-known forms. The method in which he subordinates this host of species is unusual. Eight sections of the sub-genus Cytherea are named and described; and the specific names are applied, not to the genus or even to the subgenus, but to each section. The sectional name is used in a generic sense; so that Venus meretrix becomes Meretrix meretrix, and V. Dione is converted into Dione Dione. The description of species is not in every case consistent with the sectional characters. In the first section, Tivela, the shape is stated to be “trigona;” but in T. nitidula we find it is “ovato-elliptica,” and in T. nucula “cordato-ovata.” It would also be more convenient to have the descriptive characters given in the same order throughout. In the description of the first species colour takes precedence of sculpture; in that of the second species the order of these characters is reversed. The same confusion occurs as to the teeth and pallial scar as well as to other characters. But the excellence of the illustrations compensates to a great extent for the small blemishes which it is the unpleasant duty of a critic to point out. The plates are fifty-nine in number and contain many hundred figures, all of which are evidently truthful, admirably engraved, and exquisitely coloured. The monograph must be indispensable to collectors, who are better pleased with a redundancy than with a paucity of species. Dealers have the same feeling.
Monographie der Molluskengattung Venus, Linné. 1 Band. Sub-genus Cytherea, Lamarck.
Von Dr. Eduard Römer. 4to. (Cassel, 1869.)
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JEFFREYS, J. Monographie der Molluskengattung Venus, Linné 1 Band Sub-genus Cytherea, Lamarck . Nature 1, 504 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/001504a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001504a0