i 7 o DISCOVERY REPORTS 



Cuvier in Le Regne Animal (1817), apparently on the ground that the latter name was employed in the 

 form ' les Limacines ' and was nowhere in that work explicitly proposed in latinized form. A second 

 pteropod generic name, 'les Pneumodermones', established by Cuvier was saved by the addition of 

 the latinized parenthesis ' (Pneumodermon) ', which followed the usual practice upon introduction of 

 new generic names in Le Regne Animal, but was omitted, evidently inadvertently, in the case of 

 Limacina. Lamarck in 1819 validly proposed Limacina in conformity with Linnaean practice in the 

 Latin form. Unfortunately de Blainville (18 17) had already followed upon Cuvier with the introduc- 

 tion of the term Spiratella, which thus by two years antedates Limacina Lmk. as the first validly pro- 

 posed name for these pteropods. Such a loss of the Cuvierian generic name would be particularly 

 unfortunate, in view of its long-established currency and of the obviousness of the editorial slip in the 

 proposition of the name. The general practice in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was to 

 employ Limacina without question: thus — for example — Pelseneer (1888), Meisenheimer (1905), 

 Bonnevie (1913) and Vayssiere (1915). Following Sherborn (1930), however, two Continental works 

 of first importance have adopted Spiratella — Hoffmann's opisthobranch treatise in Bronn's Tierreiches 

 (1938) and Thiele (193 1) in his authoritative systematic account. In British oceanographic literature 

 the use of Limacina has continued unchanged, and the name was most recently employed by Tesch in 

 his two extensive works (1946, 1948). 



It is greatly to be doubted whether the progress of systematics is really assisted by excavations from 

 the forgotten past. Here, one might have thought, was a name which could have rested secure and for 

 which a suspension of International Rules might justly have been claimed. It is, however, one of the 

 disadvantages of a rule of law that obedience is necessary even when the consequences appear most 

 irksome. If it does not prove possible to add Limacina to the list of nomina conservanda, Spiratella 

 must unquestionably take precedence of it and come into general use. In the meantime the familiar 

 name Limacina is retained in use without apology in both the systematic and morphological sections 

 of this paper. 



Limacina inflata (d'Orbigny) 



1836 Atlanta inflata d'Orbigny, Voyage dans VAmeriqne meridionale, V, p. 174, pi. xii, 16-19. 

 1852 Limacina inflata Souleyet, Voyage de la 'Bonite', Zoologie, 11, 216, pi. xiii, figs. 1-10. 

 1888 Limacina inflata Pelseneer, Challenger Reports, XXIII, ii, p. 17. 



1905 Limacina inflata Meisenheimer, Pteropoda, Wiss. Ergebn. D. Tiefsee-Exped. 'Valdivia', ix, 4. 

 1946 Limacina inflata Tesch, Dana Reports, v (28), p. 8, pi. i, fig. 1. 



Table 3 . Occurrence of Limacina inflata 



This is the Limacina of the line to the north of the southernmost line; it occurred here at one off- 

 shore station, WS 986, and locally outnumbered bulimoides, which accompanied it in the 0-50 m. haul 

 only. The species inflata was represented by a relatively small number of animals, the shells having 

 been for the most part dissolved by the formalin preservative. But from the size and structural 

 characteristics of the animal there can be little doubt that inflata is the species to which it belongs. 

 Moreover, this Limacina has been reported several times as accompanying bulimoides in great numbers 

 in the Sargasso Sea, and the warm temperate Atlantic. The depressed spire of the animal is of i\ turns 



