The Zoological Taxa 



of 

 William Healey Dall 



Kenneth J. Boss, Joseph Rosewater, Florence A. Ruhoff 



Introduction 



William Healey Dall (1845-1927) contributed voluminously to the 

 body of descriptive work published on mollusks during the late 1 9th and 

 early 20th centuries. He was Honorary Curator of the United States 

 National Collection of Mollusks, Smithsonian Institution, from 1881 until 

 his death, and de facto Curator from 1869 until 1914 when Paul Bartsch 

 was officially appointed to that post. Dall flourished during a period 

 which might be called 'The Descriptive Age of Malacology," a time when 

 the scientific world took stock of the discoveries resulting from the great 

 expeditions and explorations during the middle of the last century. In 

 America, he was rivalled only by his contemporary, Henry Augustus 

 Pilsbry; both men were prodigious describers of taxa. Clench and Turner 

 (1962) have provided a bibliography of the works of Pilsbry as well as an 

 important catalog of the organisms he named. Bartsch, Rehder, and 



'Boss: Department of Mollusks. Museum of Comparative Zoology. Harvard Universi- 

 ty; Rosewater and Ruhoff: Division of Mollusks. U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



