JEFFREYS ON BRITISH CONCHOLOGY (MARINE).* IN our notice of the
former volume of this book t we expressed our opinion of the general plan, method, and characteristic fea- tures which entitle the work to the attention of scientific readers. On these points we need not recapitulate. On opening the present volume we are at once struck with a greater variety, and vivacity, and a wealth of interesting matter, for which the first hardly had prepared us. The reason of this is not far to seek. It is not that Mr. Jeffreys writes better now than pre- viously; indeed his style needed no improvement. But as the transition is made from the land molluscs to the marine, the subject itself unfolds before us, and fascinates both writer and reader with the multifariousness of its hidden treasures. In truth who can get up a serious interest in garden-snails, those repulsive ravagers of the strawberry-beds, those border-plunderers, those robbers of our choicest violet preserves ? We do not study their anatomy, we crush it. Far different is it with those delicate fair-fringed creatures residing in such finely-chiselled homes, which are obtained with so much care and toil from the myste- rious recesses of the deep, and the contemplation of which inseparably connects itself with that of the ever-varying loveliness and grandeur of the ocean in which they find their dwelling- place.
Certainly, if perseverance and devotedness can entitle a man to take rank among the scientific instructors of our age, the present writer may put in a fair claim. It is true, indeed, as the poet sings- " Nil sine magno Vita labore dedit mortalibus."
And the labours of the British conchologist are arduous. Can we, with the help of the book before us, obtain some glimpses into his method of work? It is not for any one who likes to spend a few autumns at the sea-side, with a note-book and a pocket-lens, to write adequately on a subject such as this. It must be the work of years, the labour of a lifetime, the object of constant and systematic journeys (with the requisite means and appliances), also of innumerable cruisings and loiterings about in harbour, frith, creek, estuary, even inland loch ; on the deep-sea fishing- grounds, and among the isles, islets, and lovely little archipela- goes which fringe our sea-girt shores, and along all the intricate coast-line, from Unst in Shetland in the extreme north, to Jersey and Guernsey in the south. By dint of these expeditions, and working on the materials they supply, and by a constant inter- change of ideas, and specimens, with many observers in many localities, and of course by a careful study and critical revision of the existing literature on the subject, including the works of Continental writers, and a resort to Continental museums, facts and materials are at last co-ordinated, and the result is that the actual state of conchological knowledge is pretty accurately mirrored, and the labours of a long period of years make their appearance in the shape of a set of handsome, rather formidable volumes, well fitted both to delight and to instruct, and to be deposited among the archives of science.
The distinction between littoral shells (which make up the whole budget of the ordinary observer) and those which belong to the laminarian and the deep-sea zones, of course lies at the foundation of the subject. It was long supposed that the deep- sea shells were devoid of colour. This error was dissipated by Edward Forbes. Nor is nature chary of her tints even under arctic or semi-arctic skies. Of this an instance will suffice. We remember seeing, dredged in deep sea oft the Whalsey Skerries, east Shetland, the rare and pretty tellina balaustina, pearl- white, but with fan-shaped rays of pink, in all directions diverg- ing from the hinge, like "row morn appearing." We quote Mr. Jeffreys on the subject of tellina tenuis :—"The shells may often be seen lining the upper tide-mark in large bays, having been torn from their soft beds and cast up by the waves. Helplessly stranded, amid sea-weeds and foam, they lie in the rays of the setting sun, wet and glistening, ruby, gold, amber, and opal. These petty wrecks always accompany a storm, and afterwards the sea puts on a sorrowful face, as if half-conscious and repent- ing of the havoc he had lately made."
* British Concholon ; or, an Account of the Mothisca which now Inhabit the Bit sib Isles and the sue, ounding Seas. Vol. II. Marine Shells, esinprising the Brachlopoda and Conch 'fere from the family of Anomildai to that of Atactrithe. By John Gwyn Jeffreys. F.R.S., F.O.S. , ae. John Van Vooret.
N+ Spectator, June 140,1562. Full-grown whelks and cockles are for the most part perceptible enough, but may chance not to possess much interest, unless indeed the whelk be an eccentric fellow, with his whorls all twisted the wrong way. But when shells are about the size of a pin's head they both attract and will reward the naturalist. He must have good eyes, however. He must trace the little by- paths of the ocean. He must become a landscapist upon it minor scale, and run his eye cannily along the niches, the chinks, the fissures, the scarcely perceptible serrations, which, upon the sur- face of a tide-swept rock, may be supposed to harbour the young of littorina littorea, or perhaps of littorina neritoides. The young, one may suppose, are traceable by the proximity of their parents. But some shells are charmingly minute even in the adult state ; such as the delicately spired rissow, to gather which from off their moist groves of focus is with the trained naturalist the work of a few moments, as with the rapidity of a sea-eagle he pounces at once upon his victims, while the mere bystander lounges upon the beach in a state of general do-nothingness. We may add that Mr. Jeffreys is never more eloquent than when on the sub- ject of those extremely young creatures, which, it appears, puzzle him not a little. Of a species of lucina we read, "Young shells are exquisite objects, with their snow-white complexion, occasionally suffused with a pale orange tint, and their delicate flounces almost equalling the ornamentation of the once-prized Venus Dione. The fry are quite smooth and glossy." Again, as to montacuta, " The number of fry with their shells completely formed which are found in some individuals is astonishing. Many hundreds of them, packed close together, and glittering like microscopic pearls, might be counted. They occupy at least two-thirds of the space inclosed within the valves of their parent ; and its own body seems to be atrophied and dwindled to a mere skeleton. The shell is, in fact, turned into a crowded nursery." As we have just hinted, these mys- teries of vernation and mstivation (if we may be pardoned a botanical simile) lead sometimes to errors. But a good naturalist acknowledges his mistakes. In fact, we are told by Mr. Jeffrey's that, as regards crenella, "the fry are so totally -dis- similar to the adult that I was misled into describing and figuring the former under the name of linwpsis pellucida in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' for January, 1859." An error of the same kind befell Mr. Jeffreys with reference to diplodonta. In this case the restoration of the children to their parents annulled the species diodonta Rarleei ; scarcely, we should think, much to the satisfaction of Mr. Barlee. A friend of Mr. Jeffreys named a species after him, the Gwynia ; to which Mr. Jeffreys replied that he could not admit its existence as a separate species. We hope the friend in question took care to find another Gwynia.
The volume before us deals with a great number of families, such as Pecten, Mytilus, Cardium, Arcidm, Venerithe, Mactridm, &c., &c.; in fact, with the marine bivalves generally, though we fancy some few are reserved for treatment in a future volume, together with the univalves. Much care is bestowed not only on species, but on varieties. The numerous illustrations are a model of geometrical precision, and are not outlines merely, but are drawn so as to express the curved surfaces by means of lines of curvature,—witness those of mytilus and the lovely isocardia cor. We will cull one or two gems from the collection, though of necessity we must be brief.
Terebratula caput serpentis is decidedly a little favourite. We know not if this results from its diminutive size (about the breadth of a fourpenny piece); or from the exquisite curvature of a nearly ellipsoidal orange-coloured shell, or from the still deeper vermilion orange of the body, or from its graceful habit of fan- ning with its recurved fringes, when at anchorage, in a tuought-elud- ing, sight-eluding manner. But we must give up to Mr. Jeffreys the task of describing this little animal. "The brachial cirri are set on the muscular stem like the teeth of a comb, and when in action they bend forwards in a most graceful manner. The pallid tentacles are also continually moving, and sometimes curl at the point like a crozier. When the shell is closed during the lifetime of the animal these tentacles are still visible outside the edge of the shell." Lima, too, is a curious genus, and pectens are tempting objects for description. But we must confine ourselves to the following : —" The animal of the adult scallop when at rest is a study for a painter, with its large and bright pink ovary, and its mantle studded on each side with a row of brilliant eyelets like dewdrops glitteling in the sun of a May morning." No wonder, that Mr. Jeffreys thinks it right to apologize for throwing pecten niveus into the same species as pecten =rites. We regret the wrong offered to the snowy pecten. One more picture from the north of Shetland. Is limopsis a novelty to our untutored readers? Let them listen, then, to this:—" The animal is very shy, and perhaps feels uncomfortable at being disturbed and removed from its native bed. No part of it was visible in the first specimen which I captured (in 1862), although I watched it for a long time, The shell is a lovely object when fresh and examined in water. The long and delicate but stiff hairs of its epidermis resembled a fringe of silken eyelashes surrounding the lids of a sleeping beauty, and it was exceedingly tantalizing not to see the inclosed treasure as a reward for my patience. I was more for- tunate, however, in the specimens which I obtained the following year. One of them came out during the night and displayed itself." Timid little creature! Could you have thought a sleepless naturalist was on the look out for you? For it seems that much in the same way as the astronomer is rumoured to outwatch the Bear, so the conchologist outwatches the limopsis.
Details in the hands of the zoologist throw a light on general principles. We admire the prudent reserve, the very partial modified adhesion, passing almost into opposition, which Mr. Jeffreys displays with reference to the Darwinian theory. He is not deficient in powers of generalization, but he sees where the failure of evidence, in the present state of our knowledge, ought to induce us to stop short. On this and kindred topics possibly a legal training may have blended happily with a purely scien- tific culture to increase the weight due to the opinions of our author. Principles are often best enunciated in particular cases. We call attention to the following sentence : —" This remark- able, and what some would call critical; genus is related intrinsically to Leda, and extrinsically to pectunculus." These few words seem to express, sufficiently and yet most tersely, the true nature of the over-recurring zoologic mystery. On another page we find a declaration which appears replete with meaning. "The characters of all genera cannot be equivalent." This will, we think, find an echo in scientific minds, and be recognized as throwing a beam over the troubled waters ; but we cannot enlarge here on its rather profound sig- nification. In conclusion we reproduce the passage which bears most directly on Mr. Jeffreys's general view of the arrangement of the animal kingdom. "A net of chain-work conveys a very inadequate idea of the intricate way in which all these forms are intermingled, and blend one with another. No method of systematic arrangement that is possible for the wit of man to devise will serve to decipher this complicated mystery. To read for the first time a cuneiform inscription is mere child's play com- pared with the solution of this enigma. All that we can do is to observe carefully, and with fit reverence, the works of our Creator, and to record faithfully those observations for the instruction or gratification of the present and future generations."
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