VOL. XVIII, PP. 189-190 JULY 12, 1905 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



GENERAL NOTES. [p. 189 



NOTE ON THE NAME HENDERSONIA. 



In Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Quarterly issue, No. 1590, p. 

 187, July 1, 1905, 1 proposed the name He.ndersonin , for a remarkable new 

 genus of Urocoptidx from Mexico. I am now informed that in a publication 

 by Wagner (Vienna, 1905) entitled ' Helicineen Studien,' which has not yet 

 reached our library, the same name has been proposed for our well known 

 Helicina occulta Say. 



I would therefore modify the name proposed by me into Hendersoniella 

 in order to avoid the conflict which renders the later use of the name im 

 practicable. William Healey Dall. 



NOTE ON THE EARLIEST USE OF THE GENERIC NAME PUR- 

 PURA IN BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE. 



The name Purpura from early times was applied by the ancients to the 

 mollusk from which the Tyrian purple dye was derived. This is definitely 

 known to be the Murex trunculus of Linne. In harmony with this tradi 

 tion the name Purpura was used in general for the Muricidteby prelinnean 

 writers on conchology. Much later it became known that certain other 

 gastropods yielded a purple dye, and these were colloquially united with 

 the murices under the name Purpura. The first printed work treating of 

 shells was the De Purpurse of Fabius Colonna in which he figures the 

 ^furex trunculus. The earliest use in binomial nomenclature of the name 

 Purpura is by T. Martyn in the Universal Conchologist, Vol. I, fig. 66, 1784, 

 for the shell later called by Gmelin Murex foliatus, and more recently 

 Cerostoma foliatum by Carpenter. It is in harmony with tradition a muri- 

 coid ; and the same view was taken by Bolten in 1798 who began his list 

 of Purpura with Murex trunculus. As P.foliata is the only species of Pur 

 pura occurring in the first two volumes of Martyn, it must necessarily 

 typify the group bearing this ancient designation. The shells ordinarily 

 catalogued under this generic name were not separated by Lamarck until 

 174)9, from the heterogeneous Linnean murices and buccina. 



William Healey Ball. 

 33-PROC. BIOL. Soc. WASH., VOL. XVIII, 1905. (189) 



