AN INTRODUCTION ΤΟ CONCHOLOGY; OR, ELEMENTS OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS. BY GEORGE JOHNSTON, M.D., LL.D., FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF EDINBURGH. KEEPER OF THE ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM : WHOSE VALUED FRIENDSHIP AND LEARNED GUIDANCE THE AUTHOR HAS ENJOYED FOR MANY YEARS, AND WHOSE CONTRIBUTIONS FORM THE MOST VALUABLE PORTION OF IT, THIS WORK Es gratefully dedicated. 1248005 PREFACE. THIS Work was suggested by the perusal of Kirby and Spence's "Introduction to Entomology," and it is based on some letters which I contributed to Loudon's "Magazine of Natural History," between the years 1829 and 1834. This acknowledgment is necessary, for as the letters were anonymous, a reader might perchance be found to conclude that I had been guilty of plagiarism on rather an extensive scale. My object is to present the Conchologist with a view of the economical, physiological, and systematical Relations of Molluscous Animals to each other, and to other created beings. I am not aware of any other Introduction, in the English language, in which this has been attempted; and therefore my little ambition to occupy the vacant niche in the literature of a favourite department of natural science may be the more excused. I am very sensible that the Essay has not been satisfactorily accomplished; and it would have been still less so, but for the liberal permission given to me by Mr. Gray to avail myself of some of his valuable writings, the republication of which, in a more accessible form, cannot but be acceptable to the Conchologist. |