Elements of conchology
Lovell Augustus Reeve
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, May 13, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 Excerpt: ...a wider range and greater local variety of character, in conformity with the more varied arrangement of the land, in the eastern. Taking the size and substance of the shell at different elevations and in 'different degrees of temperature, it may be remarked that the calcifying energies of the Bulimi are most strongly exerted in thickly wooded districts, in the midst of plenty of decaying vegetable matter, close and humid, with a mean heat of from 80 to 85, among shady thickets or in ravines. Near the sea-level in thin calcareous soil, and in sandy plains, where the vegetation is scanty and parched, and in grassy savannahs, the shell is thin and often vividly coloured. In those species whose habit it is to burrow in the ground, the shell is mostly small, patternless, and of glassy tenuity, even in localities remote from each other and differing materially in physical character. The Western Hemisphere comprises four grand provinces of distribution, the Venezuelan, the Brazilian, the Chilian, and the Bolivian, and from these may be further distinguished the districts of the Galapagos Islands and of the Great Antilles. The first province includes the countries of New Granada and Venezuela; the second comprises the empire of Brazil and Buenos Ay res; the third comprises Chili and West Peru j and the fourth province includes Bolivia and the Argentine Kepublic. About three hundred and fifty species have been described from this hemisphere. Read before the Royal Society in 1851. 1. The Venezuelan Province. The highest condition of the genus is in intertropical America, which yields nearly one-half of the number of species known from all parts of the world. In the luxuriant districts of New Granada and Venezuela, watered by the tributaries of the Magdalena and Orino...