166 teredinid^e. 



10. Classification. — The mistakes made by some of the 

 older naturalists, and even by Linne, as to the organi- 

 zation and zoological position of Teredo, are scarcely 

 less remarkable than the object of which they treated. 

 In the first edition of the * Fauna Suecica/ published 

 in 1746, it was placed in Dentalium, along with that 

 shell and Serpula, the tube only being regarded. In the 

 tenth edition of the ( Systema Nature (1760), it was 

 correctly named Teredo ; but it was classed among the 

 "Vermes. Intestina," and described as having a mouth 

 with two jaws, inside which was a ciliated foreskin ("prse- 

 putium"), a siphon within the latter, and tubercles round 

 the mouth. In the twelfth and perfected edition (1767) 

 it is called a Terebella, and arranged between Serpula 

 and Sabella. These were unpardonable blunders on the 

 part of the great systematist, because in all his works 

 above cited he especially referred to the celebrated 

 monograph of Sellius, who had clearly shown the 

 affinity of Teredo and Pholas as testaceous mollusks. 

 Nearly a quarter of a century after the appearance of 

 that monograph, Adanson made the same observation ; 

 and his ' Histoire naturelle du Senegal * bears date 

 three years before the tenth, and ten years before the 

 twelfth edition of the ' Systema/ It is possible that 

 Linne had no opportunity of becoming acquainted with 

 Adanson's work on Senegal for many years after it was 

 published. The communication between Sweden and 

 France in their time could not have been so intimate as 

 it afterwards became. No such excuse however can be 

 offered for Lamarck's ignorance of the writings of his 

 distinguished countryman, seeing also that, at the date 

 of the ' Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertebres/ 

 more than half a century had elapsed since the publica- 

 tion of Adanson's second memoir on Teredo in the 



