Notes on South African Mollusca. 101 



re-employed in such a manner as to invalidate it from future use, 

 prior to 1897 ; (iii) that the African species of Tiara, now under 

 consideration, had not been described or named until the year just 

 mentioned ; that von Martens established the name coacta by 

 adopting it for a definite species ; and that, as Meuschen is inad- 

 missible and his idea of coacta open to doubt, the present species 

 must be known by the name of Tiara coacta (von Martens). 



Before quitting the subject it may be advisable to deal with Bolten's 

 second species, Tiara cancellata* 



He gave this name to the large, broad- based, flat-spired variety, 

 listed by Gmelin f as H. amarula, var. /3, and badly, though 

 recognizably, figured by Chemnitz, \ which now passes as setosa, 

 Swainson. 



In 1824 Swainson described under this name an immature shell 

 from Mauritius, which forthwith became the subject of a heated 

 controversy between himself and Gray.|| This ended by Gray 

 proving, at least to his own satisfaction, that setosa was the species 

 figured by Chemnitz, a view subsequently adopted by Brot.lT 



Judging from Swainson's original figure and locality, it appears 

 doubtful whether his setosa does not represent the young state of 

 amarula, rather than the species which now passes under Swainson's 

 name, but, even if Gray's application of it is correct, Bolten's Tiara 

 cancellata has priority by twenty-six years, so that it must obviously 

 be adopted for the species in question. 



POSTSCRIPT. Since the foregoing Note was written, Suter has 

 adopted the family name Thiaridae in his work on New Zealand 

 Mollusca.** For reasons already given it seems desirable to 

 modify the spelling, but in any case the authorship of the name 

 must be attributed to him 



* Mus. Boltenianum, Hamburg, 1798, part ii. p. 109. 



t Syst. Nat. Ed. 13, 1790, i. 6, p. 3656, No. 126/3. 



J Conch. Cab., 1786, ix. p. 1-59. PI. CXXXIV, f. 1220, 1221. 



Quart. Journ. Sci. Lit. Arts, 1824, xvii. p. 13. 



|[ Zool. Journ., 1824-5, i. pp. 253, 399, 523. 



H Conch. Cab., 1877, p. 297. 



** Man. N.Z. Moll., 1913, pp. xviii, 235. 



