Page:Sea shells of New Zealand.pdf/13

Sea Shells
of New Zealand

Introduction

Sixteen years have now elapsed since a book has been published in New Zealand for the amateur collector, and Time has wrought some changes, even in such an apparently immutable science as conchology, though the changes have been of no greater moment than the altering of a name, some slight modification in the classification of species, or the discovery of some small and hitherto unknown Mollusc.

Some books have the disadvantage of being too technical and profuse for the person of average education; others again are so simple and sketchy in dealing with the subject that they are most unsatisfactory to those wishing to gain a working knowledge of conchology; so I have tried to strike a happy mean in the following pages, and hope my efforts will not have been in vain. While endeavouring to confine myself to plain terms, the defining of subtle differences in varieties or species is, at times, a matter of some difficulty. In avoiding the Scylla of scientific terminology, so exact and precise, yet exasperating to the novice, one has to be equally chary not to steer into the Charybdis of too much simplicity, and thereby fail to portray features that are so distinctive as to claim immediate recognition when once pointed out. Most of us may remember the story of a Frenchman who, when working on a dictionary, described the crab as “A little red fish that runs backwards.” Cuvier, or perhaps it was Buffon, in criticising the work, said: “The crab is not a fish, it is not red, nor does it run backwards; otherwise the definition may serve.” So I am hoping this little book, imperfect though it be, will find favour as guide, philosopher and friend to those who see beauty and refinement and grandeur in Nature, scattered with a lavish hand by an all-wise