THE NAUTILUS. 181 



each variant appears to date back to the brothers Henry and 

 Arthur Adams, who, although using the genus Tnrris as of 

 Humphrey rather than Bolten, wrote the family name Turritidae 

 in the first volume of their great review of molluscan genera, 1 

 and then later corrected it to Turridac. 2 Their more mature 

 judgment is therefore plainly in favor of the simpler spelling. 

 It is mainly very recently that the insertion of the extra syllable 

 has been revived. 



The essential facts of the case are believed to be fairly stated 

 thus: 



1. "The name of a family is formed by adding the ending 

 idae, the name of a subfamily by adding inae to the stem of the 

 name of its type genus." 



2. The name of the type genus of the particular family in 

 question is Turrts, presumably an exact transcription of the 

 Latin noun turris, meaning in English, "tower." 



3. The name of the family in question is variously spelled 

 Tnrridae and Turritidae in the literature. The spelling Turriidae 

 has also been suggested for consideration. 



4. In Latin grammars (e. g., Allen and Greenough), turns is 

 often given as the example par excellence of an i-stem noun, the 

 stem therefore ostensibly turri-. 



5. A recent proponent of the spelling Turritidae writes that 

 he "submitted the question of 'Turridae versus Turritidae' to 

 two expert Latinists, who, after due consideration of all the 

 data, concluded that, while either was correct, the latter term 

 under the circumstances was to be preferred. Here the matter 

 now appears to rest. 



Now the writer has been one of those adhering to the spelling 

 Turridae, and being still unconvinced of his error, yet eager to 

 arrive once for all at a correct and therefore permanent usage, 

 he submitted the case essentially as outlined above to a friend, 

 a well-known student of Latin, Professor B. 0. Foster of Stan- 

 ford University, adding thereto the following specific queries: 



1 Genera of Recent Mollusca, v. 1, p. 87. 

 ' Op. cit., v. 2, p. 614. 



s International Rules of Zoological Nomenclature, Article 4 (Smallwood 

 edition, p. 4). 



