1886.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 303 



dredged two somewhat worn specimens in Bering Sea, southwest from 

 St. Lawrence Lshmd, in fifty-five fathoms. 



A similarly coronated species, but of very much smaller size, is in 

 the British Museum from New Zealand, acquired with the Cumingian 

 Collection, and was the type of Troiylion coronatus Adams (P. Z. S., 1862, 

 p. 429). Similar specimens were obtained by the Challenger in those 

 seas in very deep water. In the British Museum I found a specimen 

 labelled Trophon goodridgii Forbes, 1852, from the Herald voyage, which 

 appears to be identical with an adolescent stage of T. muriciformis. It 

 would seem, however, that this name was never published, and I have 

 not found any reference to it in any publication I have been able to 

 consult. From a remark of Forbes in the Annals and Magazine of Xatu- 

 ral History, 1852 (vol. x, pp. 305-0), it is probable that this specimen 

 came from Cape Kruzenstern, Kotzebue Sound. 



The death of Forbes occurred in 1854, when only the vertebrates of 

 the zoology of the Herald voyage, which he edited, together with two 

 short papers in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, with prelimi- 

 nary descriptions of a few mollusks, had been published. This proba- 

 bly accounts for the absence of the report on the invertebrates which 

 he was so well qualified to prepare. 



In this connection it may be noted that Trophon stuarti Smith (P. Z. 

 S., 1880, pi. xlviii, fig. 6, p. 481), from Vancouver Island, is a fine pale 

 specimen of the Alaskan and Oregonian T. orpheus Gould, and the T. 

 maltzani of Kobelt seems very likely to prove one of the numerous va- 

 rieties of T. tenuisculptus Cpr., itself close to craticulatus Fabr. 



Genus STROMBELLA Gray. 



It is generally acknowledged that, as between a generic name prop- 

 erly characterized and one which is a mere naked interjection into 

 literature, that which is characterized should stand, and especially 

 when it is anterior in date, though it has the right to stand apart from 

 the question of date. Of course a naturalist having the benefit of 

 science at heart would not intentionally duplicate names, but would 

 adopt and characterize the one already given if 'determinable. But 

 most naturalists are content to go by habit or custom, and in doubtful 

 points accept without verification very doubtful or inadequate determi- 

 nations. In the case of the present genus such an instance exists. 

 There is, in a catalogue by Schleuter, the name Strombella without 

 any means of identification whatever, and were it correctly identified 

 with a type which has been assij4ned to it, it would still be a synonym. 

 For us, therefore, the name Strombella Schleuter is an echo of vacancy, 

 a nothing. Gray characterized briefly, but suflQciently, his genus 

 Strombella at a later day, and shortly after this Morch injected a "cata- 

 logue name," Volutopsius, into his list of Greenland mollusca, which was 

 only characterized by him much later, and amended to Volutopsis by 



