Vol. XVIII, pp. 189-190 July 12, 1905 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



GENERAL NOTES. 



NOTE OX THE NAME HENDERSONIA. 



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

 187, July 1, 1905, I proposed the name Hendersonin, for a remarkable new 

 genus of Urncoptidic from INIexico. lam 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 Dull. 



NOTE ON THE EARLIEST USE OF THE GENERIC NAME PUR- 

 FURA 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 he the Mur ex trunculus of Linne. In harmony with this tradi- 

 tion the name Purpura was used ingeueral f>r the Muricidx by 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 Purpurx of Fabius Colonna in which he figures the 

 Murex trunculus. The earliest use in binomial nomenclature of the name 

 Purpura is by T. Martyn in the Universal Conchologist, Vol. I, fig. G6, 1784, 

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

 Cerostomn fullaturn 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.foliaia is the only species of Pur- 

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

 typify the group bearing this ancient designation. The shells ordinarily 

 catalogued under this generic name were not separated by Lamarck until 

 1799, from the heterogeneous Linnean murices and buccina. 



— William Ilealey Dull. 

 33— Prog. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. XVIII, 1905. (189) 



