XXV111 HISTORICAL NOTES. 



2. Genre Berendtia C. & F. 



3. Genre Holospira Mts. (exclusive of Epirobia, left in 

 Cylinclrella) . 



Except for some readjustment of the nomenclature, it will 

 be seen that most of the prominent genera of the family were 

 correctly indicated by Crosse and Fischer. The whole classi- 

 fication was recast in a new mould of their own discovery, 

 without material assistance from former authors. 



Further research has shown that Eucalodium and its allies 

 are not really Helicidce as that family is now restricted ; but 

 this could not have been foreseen in 1870. Some confusion 

 in their groups A, B and C was due to the parallelism of 

 specialized forms of Urocoptis, etc., but the recognition of 

 this too is an essentially modern conception. It would be 

 difficult to find many instances where the main outlines of a 

 natural classification of so diversified a family have been so 

 completely laid down in a single paper, and with so little 

 assistance from previous authors. It must be admitted, how- 

 ever, that Crosse and Fischer did not understand the mor- 

 phology of the teeth of the Antillean genera, and failed to 

 grasp their natural divisions. 



The next notable contribution to the phylogeny and tax- 

 onomy of Urocoptidce was by Hermann Strebel and Georg 

 Pfeffer, in Theil iv, of their "Beitrag zur Kenntniss der 

 Fauna mexikanischer Land- und Siisswasser-Conchylien" 

 (1880), a work full of original ideas and new points of view. 

 They recognize two families: Eucalodiida?, with the genera 

 Eucalodium and Ccelocentrum, and Cylindrellidce, for Ani- 

 sospira, Holospira, Epirobia, Macroceramus, and the Antil- 

 lean groups. The reasons for the segregation of the Euca- 

 lodiidcE are nowhere stated, and that course seems ill-advised. 

 Strebel understood the morphology of the teeth of Urocop- 

 tincu, and pointed out the homology with teeth of normal 

 types, correcting the exaggerated view held by Fischer. He 

 showed that Epirobia, to some extent, connects the two diverse 

 types of dentition in the family. By cutting the shell, many 

 features of the axis not previously appreciated were exposed, 

 and their importance for phylogenetic research was recog- 



