Tabula Methodica

Petit, Richard E., 2007, Lovell Augustus Reeve (1814 - 1865): malacological author and publisher, Zootaxa 1648 (1), pp. 1-120 : 22-24

Tabula Methodica

In July 1841 Reeve was in Paris seeking recognition for a new system for classifying and arranging the Mollusca he had devised for his Conchologia Systematica. It was simply a Lamarckian system modified with changes made by Cuvier , Blainville , Deshayes , and Gray , with some rearrangement and a few new terms. Although the Systematica was already written, but not yet printed, Reeve did not first present his new system in England but instead submitted it to the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris, presumably to gain publicity and thus impress potential customers and, in turn, assure his acceptance by British workers. Of course, expectation of a favorable response from the French was extremely naive .

Most biographical notes about Reeve state that he read a paper on his system at a meeting of the “Academy of Sciences of Paris,” based on his own statement to that effect (Reeve 1863a: v). An exception is the Portraits biography ( Hunt 1865), which stated only that it “was read.” However, papers read at the Académie were by Academicians themselves or endorsed by an Academician, and the archives of the meeting do not suggest that Reeve’s “communication” was anything other than a submission for review. The original submitted document entitled Conchiologia Systematica, handwritten and bearing his signature, is still in the archives of the Académie attached to a printed cover sheet normally used for submitting manuscripts for review. On this sheet the printed word Memoire is crossed out, and Tableau written in. Appointed as Commissaires to study it were MM. Henri M. D. de Blainville (1777–1850), Pierre Flourens (1794–1867), Isidore Geoffroy- Saint-Hilaire (1805–1861) and Henri Milne-Edwards (1800–1885). The fact that Reeve’s tableau had been submitted to the Académie was announced, together with the names of the Commissaires, in the Compte Rendu of the meeting of 5 July 1841. It is considered significant that the correspondent who reported meetings of the Académie to the London Literary Gazette did not mention Reeve or his system in the published report of the 5 July meeting ( Anonymous 1841b). Surely if a Londoner had read a paper it would have been reported to the London paper.

The Commissaires wrote Reeve questioning placement of the cirripeds (barnacles). Reeve’s reply, cited in the Compte Rendu of 19 July ( Anonymous 1841c), was vague. He stated that although he was considering their request, he was leaving them in Mollusca, but would possibly establish a separate phylum before publishing his book. Nothing further was ever heard from the Académie although Reeve wrote in August asking that their report be hastened ( Anonymous 1841d). The matter was seemingly ended there until Reeve wrote again after the Systematica was published in its entirety, requesting that the Académie promptly issue a verbal report on a work (the Systematica) that had been submitted to them as published. Reeve’s message was printed in the Compte Rendu:

“ M. L. Reeve prie l’Académie de vouloir bien se faire faire, le plus promptement possible, un rapport

verbal sur un ouvrage de conchyliologie dont il lui a addressé les diverses parties au fur et à mesure

de leur publication. ” – ( Anonymous 1843a)

Reeve had indeed sent the Académie parts of the Systematica as issued, and reports of their receipt in the Compte Rendu make it possible to date some of the parts. There was never any formal review by the Académie of either Reeve’s system or the book. Guérin-Méneville (Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville, 1799–1874) did review the system, under the title Distributio methodica molluscorum testaceorum, in the Revue Zoologique. Although the review appeared in the “ analyses d’ouvrages nouveaux ” section of that journal, there is no evidence that Guérin-Méneville (1841: 229) had seen anything but Reeve’s manuscript submitted to the Académie. In the review he mentioned that the system was to be used in the forthcoming Conchiliologia [sic] systematica. In any event, Guérin-Méneville’s review was quite critical, taking exception not only to the inclusion of the cirripeds, but especially to the inclusion of the Foraminifera, treated by Reeve as Cephalopoda Polythalamia.

Guérin-Méneville’s severely critical review may have been a polite way for the Académie to dispense of a formal response to Reeve and was likely the reason for Reeve’s failure to continue his association with the Société Cuvierienne and to drop that association from his list of “honors.”

On 28 September 1841, Reeve presented his system to the Zoological Society of London under the title Tabula Methodica (Reeve 1842a) without any mention of France. The paper states that it is “a plan he intended to adopt in his forthcoming Conchologia Systematica.” That paper appeared both in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society and the Annals and Magazine of Natural History and a third time, verbatim except for the actual table, in The Polytechnic Journal for March 1842 in the form of a review with the addition of a footnote that was effectively an advertisement for the Systematica. With the exception of the opening sentence and the footnote, it is identical to the other two papers .

In the Tabula Reeve did change his classification of the cirripeds. They were placed at the top of the table as Lepades under the heading Subregna. The Lepades included two Orders each with one Family. As in the system presented in France the cirripeds comprised Class 1 with two Orders, only the terminology needed to be changed. In the more detailed classification only the numbers of the molluscan Classes were affected. In addition to the Lepades, the final Tabula contained only the Mollusca Conchifera, which was subdivided into five Classes, twelve Orders, 44 families and 225 Genera. The Foraminifera remained under the Cephalopoda.

The Tabula was published as a double-fold table in the front of the Systematica. It was also published as a table in the front of Catlow & Reeve (1845) under the heading Molluscorum Distributio Methodica with the Lepades omitted.

Reeve, in an effort to achieve “equivalency of terms” for the Classes of Mollusca, coined the term Tropiopoda for what we today call the Bivalvia, divided into the Bimusculosa and Unimusculosa, based on two or only one conspicuous adductor muscle. In his Initiamenta and Elements (1846 and 1860, 1: 4, footnote) Reeve stated that Prof. Owen (Richard Owen, 1804–1892) had shown that the foot cannot be used for classification and he therefore reverted to the use of Lamellibranchiata, the term then current.

It must be remembered that at the time the Tabula was introduced, Reeve had published only one paper, describing two species. It was, at best, pretentious of Reeve. The Tabula was certainly not in substance a new system. It was ignored by George Johnston (1797–1855) in An Introduction to Conchology (1850) which included a descriptive summary of various arrangements from Aristotle to Cuvier, Gray and Savigny. In his last chapter Johnston discussed “Recent improvements in the classification of Mollusca.” It included arrangements by Gray, Milne-Edwards, Deshayes, and others, without mention of either Reeve or his Tabula . Reeve noticed this as in a review he criticized that portion of Johnston’s book as

“a tedious history of systems, which increases the weight of the book without adding to its useful-

ness.” – (Reeve 1850e: 761)