Pvn H,i I'UitlS

GALEOMMA. 187
form of the dangerous maxim laissez faire.
The great
masses are like children, and ought to be educated as
well as protected ; and if proper tuition is not afforded,
their minds may be occupied with other and less inno-
cent thoughts, and deplorable consequences may result
to their short-sighted governors from a want of timely
precaution. As Montaigne aptly says, " Fame descharge
ses passions sur les objets faux quand les vrais luy de-
faillent."
Let us, however, return from politics to Galeomma.
Its nearest ally is Area. Both have the same shape,
the ventral gape is similar, the hinge-line is nearly as
straight, and the mantle is equally
furnished with ocelli.
But here the analogical resemblance ends. The animal
of Area has no tube, and the shell is of a different tex-
ture. That of the present genus has an internal carti-
lage instead of an external ligament, and it entirely
wants the peculiar teeth of the Area family. Mr. Clark
must have been mistaken in supposing he saw " oblique,
though nearly obsolete teeth on the ligamental line in
to the thinness and trans-
Galeomma Turtoni" Owing
parency of its shell, the oblique
striae which ornament
the external surface are indistinctly perceptible through
the hinge-plate of its outer edge; and I believe this
appearance may have misled my usually
most accurate
friend : I have carefully and closely examined, with dif-
ferent powers of a first-rate microscope, the hinge-appa-
ratus of many fresh specimens,
and never could detect
the slightest vestige of any tooth. In the '
ings '
Proceed-
of the Zoological Society for 1855 is contained an
excellent paper by M. Deshayes on this genus.
He has
there described no less than twelve new species, in addi-
tion to G. Turtoni and (provisionally) the Psammobia
vitrea of Quoy. Eleven of these new species, however,