By SYLVANUS HANLEY, Esq., F.L.S.
[Read Dec. 3, 1858.]
Not the least important result of the investigations of the Committee
appointed by the Linnean Society to examine the condition of the
collections and manuscripts of Linnæus, was the rediscovery of a written
copy of the 'Museum Ulricæ.' The volume was manifestly, from internal
evidence, a legible transcript of the original manuscript of that
work, with alterations and interpolations in the peculiar handwriting
of the author. It was, indubitably, the unpublished catalogue so
often mentioned in the tenth edition of the 'Systema,' and contains
descriptions of certain species alluded to as defined, yet, strangely
enough, omitted in the printed edition. It is worthy of notice for
many reasons: it corrects the frequent misprints; explains the many
fallacious allusions to preceding species, their sequence being very
different; it exhibits those early synonyms, which, culled from
comparison with the actually described specimens, had been eventually
supplanted by supposed better representations; above all, it imparts to
us those original headings, or diagnoses (condensed from the subsequent
details), which had been suppressed, of old, in favour of those already
published in the 'Systema.'
This wholesale substitution, adopted by Linnæus, as a ready method of
avoiding a tedious revision of all the headings, when he absorbed in the
more comprehensive groups of his 'Systema' the members of manuscript
genera he had determined to reject, involved a serious amount of
confusion; for, oftentimes, the species of the two works, although
designated by the same appellations, were totally distinct; and the
combination of the diagnosis of the one with the details of the other
displayed an array of features not known to be associated in any object
in nature.
The generic arrangement exhibited in the manuscript differs essentially
from that which appeared in the final edition of his 'Systema Naturæ.'
As a whole, it is decidedly inferior, yet it segregates certain natural
groups, such as _Lyra_ and _Cassida_, the value of which have been
acknowledged by all modern naturalists. The following list and sequence
of the genera comprised in it, cannot, indeed, be regarded as an
entire system, for certain groups, viz., _Chiton_, _Lepas_, _Teredo_,
_Sabella_, and the typical forms of _Mya_, _Mactra_, and _Anomia_, were
not at that period represented in the Museum; but it is not devoid of
interest, since it manifests a transitional stage in the progressive
advance to that matured scheme which was finally elaborated in the pages
of his revised 'Systema.'
Dentalium.
Patella.
Nerita.
Helix.
Turbo.
Trochus.
Turricula.
Buccinum.
Lyra.
Morion.
Conus.
Voluta.
Strombus (not that of the 'Systema').
Harpago (=Strombus).
Murex.
Cassida.
Cypræa.
Bulla.
Haliotis.
Nautilus.
Cymbium (=Argonauta).
Spondylus.
Ostrea.
Pecten.
Arca.
Pinna.
Mytilus.
Solen.
Tellina.
Chama (not that of the 'Systema').
Cunnus (=Venus).
Pholas (not that of the 'Systema').
Trunculus (=Donax).
Bucardium (=Cardium).
Besides the four genera (_Chiton_, _Lepas_, _Teredo_, _Sabella_) that
were excluded from this catalogue, either from the absence of specimens,
or from mistrust of their being veritable Testacea, six of the
remaining 32, namely, _Pholas_, _Mya_, _Mactra_, _Chama_, _Anomia_, and
_Serpula_, were likewise omitted, not being yet eliminated from _Solen_,
_Bucardium_, _Spondylus_, _Ostrea_, and _Dentalium_. To counterbalance
these, we find no less than eight subsequently abandoned groupings:
_Turricula_ (an undefined amalgam of the long-spired species of
_Buccinum_, _Murex_, and _Strombus_).
_Lyra_ (the _Harpa_ and _Purpura_ of the Lamarckian school).
_Morion_ (an unnatural compound of _Eburna_, _Auricula_ proper,
_Pythia_, _&c._).
_Strombus_ (a combination of the immature members of the received genus
with _Pyrula_, _Fasciolaria_, and other allied forms).
_Cassida_ (nearly the modern _Cassis_).
_Pecten_ (equal to _Lima_ and _Pecten_).
_Chama_ (the _Tapes_ of recent conchologists).
_Pholas_ (chiefly composed of _Artemis_ and _Lucina_).
It may be remarked, moreover, that the simple univalves commence, and
the bivalves close the series; the exact converse of the order in which
they are marshalled in the two principal editions of the 'Systema
Naturæ.'
I feel assured, after a careful study of the manuscript, that the names
eventually allotted to the shells of the 'Museum' did not result from a
careful comparison of the royal specimens with the typical examples in
the private collection of our author, but were attached to the species,
either from the identity of the written and printed synonymy, or from
the general accordance of their described features with the meagre
characteristics enumerated in the prior publication.
The erased nomenclature of the species, however, was very dissimilar,
and was scrupulously based upon a supposed identity of the specimens
with those delineated by Rumphius, Klein, and d'Argenville. Assuredly
at that period of his career, our author entertained the same profound
respect for the laws of priority which is professed by all modern
naturalists; and I hesitate not to affirm that, from the crude and
inharmonious theories of his predecessors, he eliminated a system of
Conchology that was better suited to the requirements of the age he
lived in than any more elaborate arrangement would have been. For
simplicity attracts the student, whom a more complex (even if more
natural) method would repel; and for the collection of an adequate mass
of materials wherewith, eventually, to build up a more symmetrical and
widely-based structure, a multitude of comparatively unskilled labourers
is more efficacious than a small knot of the most erudite architects.
Before inviting the attention of my readers to the original headings of
the 'Museum Ulricæ,' and to my brief account of the variations in the
written copy from the text of the printed version, I must premise, that
it has not been my practice invariably to notice, in the summary, such
trifling differences of construction as the preferential use of the
ablative for the nominative case, where the verbal change involved no
alteration of the precise meaning.