SOLECURTUS. 6 



It is the genus Macha of Oken, who described it in 

 the c Allgemeine Naturgeschichte ' for 1835, giving the 

 Solen strigilatus of Linne as the type. This, however, 

 was eleven years after De BlainvihVs publication of Sole- 

 cur tus. Herrmannsen at first cited the date of Oken's 

 publication as 1815, but corrected the mistake in his 

 ' Supplement ;' he disapproves of the word Solecurtus, as 

 well as of Solenocurtus and Solenocurtis (emendations 

 of Sowerby and Swainson), and suggests Cyrtosolen. 

 But if we proceed in this way to rectify the nomenclature 

 of Natural History, few of the modern names would be 

 recognizable in their new dresses. A century ago Linne 

 complained of a deterioration in this respect — one of his 

 axioms being " Veterum nomina plerumque prsestantis- 

 sima, recentiorum pejora fuere." I fear that the lapse 

 of time has not brought with it any improvement. The 

 present name appears to have been compounded accord- 

 ing to a grammatical rule called Syncope, and it has a 

 precedent in the word lapicida (for lapidicida) used by 

 Livy and Varro. Leach's name of Azor appeared in 

 the second edition (1844) of Brown's work on British 

 and Irish Conchology; it had S. antiquatus for its type. 



1. Solecurtus can'didus*, Renier. 



Solen candidus, Kenier, Tav. Conch. Adriat. p. 1. Solecurtus candidus, 

 F. & H. i. p. 263, pi. xv. f. 1, 2. 



Body of a uniform bright orange-yellow colour : mantle 

 somewhat paler towards the margin : tubes united at their 

 bases, where the siphonal mass is large and thick, and sepa- 

 rated at their extremities ; orifices fringed : foot pale orange 

 with a whitish sole. 



Shell elliptical, rather convex, but compressed in the middle, 

 solid, opaque, somewhat glossy : sculpture, 40 to 50 oblique and 

 imbricated longitudinal striae or slight ribs, of which nearly 



* White. 



b2 



