﻿DALL] REVIEW OF FROG-SHELLS AND TRITONS I I 5 



Bolten's posthumously printed catalogue appeared, in which the same 

 group was recognized under the name of Bursa. Murex rana Linne 

 was separated into some of its component species, beginning with 

 rana s. s. Bolten (spinosa Lamarck) and including R. crumena 

 Lam., R. foliata Brod., B. gibbosa Bolten (R. granulata Lam.), 

 B. mammata Bolten (=M. bufonius Gmelin, 1792), and B. 

 bufonia Bolten not Gmelin (=spinosa var.). These are all forms 

 with a posterior canal at the junction of the outer lip and body- 

 whorl, and the group includes both nodular and spinose forms. The 

 forms without a posterior sinus, and with or without laterally uni- 

 form varices, are put in Tritonium Bolten (not Miiller) just as 

 was done nearly a century later by Fischer. Owing to the confusion 

 of allied species with one another by Linne, Gmelin, and other early 

 writers, it is necessary to be very careful in making the identifications 

 upon the accuracy of which so much depends. 



The next author to take up the group was Link in 1807, whose 

 classification was less natural than Bolten's, since it seems to have 

 been based wholly on the presence of symmetrical lateral varices, and 

 included species like M. gyrinus Linne, which have no posterior 

 canal. He includes under the name of Gyrineum: G. echinata Link 

 (R. spinosa Lam.) ; G. rana (L.) Link (R. crumena Lam.) ; G. 

 bufonium (Gmelin) Link; G. natator Link (R. tubcrculata Bro- 

 derip) ; and G. vcrrucosum Link (=R. ranina Lam. = Murex 

 gyrinus L.). This retrograde arrangement has been more or less 

 popular up to the present moment. 



Montfort in 1810, saw more clearly and put the ranelliform Tritons 

 by themselves under the name of Apollon (which he supposed to 

 be Latin) with Murex gyrinus (Linne) Gmelin as type. In his 

 synonymy, as with all the early authors, there is some confusion of 

 similar species or figures of species, exactly as in the case of Ranclla 

 granifera Lamarck. But Montfort's figure, though rude, is obviously 

 destitute of any anal sinus or gutter, and he adopts the specific name 

 gyrinus for his species, identifying it with Murex gyrinus of Linne, 

 better known as Ranella ranina Lamarck, a species known to be 

 destitute of the anal sulcus. Moreover he contrasts it with the next 

 genus, Buffo, which possesses a sinus. I think therefore we cannot 

 do otherwise than recognize that Apollon is based upon the Tritonoid 

 forms without an anal sulcus, and accept literally his cited type as 

 the type of Montfort's genus, in spite of the fact that incongruous 

 species are included among those cited in his synonymy- 

 Very much the same is true of Ranclla granifera Lamarck, among 

 the synonyms of which are species with and species without an anal 



