86 American Sea shells 



which is akin to a first name such as William or Julia. The generic name 

 is always capitalized, e.g., Comis, Strombiis or Area, but the specific name 

 which comes after the genus name is not, e.g., princeps, pilsh'yi or florideijsis. 

 It is also customary to add the name of the person who described and 

 christened the species; thus the Queen Conch of southern Florida and the 

 West Indies is known as Strovibiis gigas Linne. If subspecies or geographical 

 races are recognized, the name may appear, for example, as Melojtgena corona 

 perspectiva Pilsbry or M. corona corona Gmelin, the latter being the typical 

 race. W'e have employed subgenera throughout the book as center headings. 

 They may also be written into the name in parentheses: Janthina (Violetta) 

 gJobosa Swainson. It is wrong to put a generic synonym in the middle of 

 the name, as Busy con {Fiilgiir) carica Gmelin. 



Some authorities may put the author's name in parentheses, for example, 

 Modulus modulus (Linne). This means that the species was first described 

 under another genus, in this case, not Modulus but Trochus. Unfortunately, 

 as our science becomes more advanced, parentheses must be used in the ma- 

 jority of the species, and their usefulness becomes offset by the tax on one's 

 memory as to whether or not they are to be employed in the various species. 

 Modern workers are attempting to abandon this useless frill of nomencla- 

 ture, and in this book they are not used. Dates following the author's names 

 refer to the date of publication and serve the useful purpose of tracking 

 down the original reference. It should be noted that the "double i" ending 

 is no longer used in species names (not smithii, but smkhi). 



Name changing. There is nothing more annoying than having a well- 

 known and frequently used scientific name changed; and the field of mol- 

 lusks seems to be having its lion's share of tossing out of old friends for utter 

 strangers. There are two basic kinds of changes — zoological and nomencla- 

 rorial. Everyone will condone the former, for it is obvious, as our knowledge 

 increases, that certain genera or even species will be found to be mixtures, 

 and this necessitates separating and applying new names. In this book, for 

 example, Fasciolaria gigantea is changed to Pleuroploca gigantea. The Horse 

 Conch, P. gigantea, does not have characters like those of the tulip shells, 

 and it cannot be put in the genus Fasciolaria with such species as F. tulipa 

 Linne and F. hunteria Perry. For the same reason, what has been called by 

 many workers Ostrea virginica is now Crassostrea virginica. Venus merce- 

 naria is now Mercenaria mercenaria. 



Nomenclatorial name changing is hardest for everyone to accept. As 

 not infrequently happens, a species may be given several different names 

 inadvertently by various authors. The International Commission for Zoolog- 

 ical Nomenclature has set up an extensive set of rules; among these is the 

 rule of priority by which the earliest valid name is chosen if several names 

 are available. Unfortunately, the earliest name may have been overlooked 



