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.
Museum Ludovicæ Ulricæ Reginæ.
CONCHYLIA.
CHITON, LEPAS.
Nothing relating to these two genera was found in the copy.