INSULARUM BRITANNICARUM. THE SHELLS OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS, Systematically arranged. BY W. TURTON, M. D. EXETER: PRINTED BY R. CULLUM, AT THE GENERAL PRINTING-OFFICE, FOR RODWELL AND MARTIN, BOND-STREET, LONDON. ILLUSTRISSIMO ET SERENISSIMO PRINCIPI LEOPOLDO GEORGIO FREDERICO, DUCI SAXONIÆ, MARCHIONI MISNIE, LANDGRAVIO THURINGIE, PRINCIPI COBURGI SAALFELDENSIS, A CONSILIIS SECRETIORIBUS, ET HONORATISSIMI ORDINIS MILITARIS PREFACE. A THOUSAND years ago it was remarked by one of the early fathers of natural history, that "much labor yet remains, and much is likely to remain; nor will opportunities of adding something be wanting to him who shall be born after a thousand ages." Multum adhuc restat operis, multumque restabit; nec ulli nato post mille secula præcludetur occasio aliquid adjiciendi. + He that brings to its place in system, an individual hitherto undiscovered or unnoticed, produces an additional testimony of the unbounded power of HIM, who in all His works is maximus in maximis, maximus in minimis; mightiest in the mightiest, and mightiest in the minutest. The materials of natural history, in their various compartments, are of such huge accumulation, as to occasion no small difficulty in the formation of distinctive catalogues, founded on scientific and classical distribution. The illustrious writers of the French school have come boldly forth, and broken the trammels by which the science of Conchology |