NO. 7 OPINIONS 115 TO 123 9 



ceque Tanimal pendant sa vie nage presque continuellenient a fleur d'eau, et 

 qu'apres sa mort sa coquille flotte comme une petite bulle d'air transparente. Je 

 n'ai observe qu'une espece de ce genre, et elle n'est figuree ni decrite nulle part. 



From this it seems clear that " Le BuHn, Bulinns" means a little 

 bubble, namely, the diminutive of the French " la bulle," Latin, 

 " bulla." 



As Adanson uses the correct orthography of the word " la bulle " 

 on page 5, and as he consistently uses " Le Bulin, BiiUnus " in at least 

 three different places, and the French word " bulin " in a fourth place 

 also, it seems obvious that he intended to coin a new French mas- 

 culine noun " le bulin " as name for this mollusk and that he made 

 his Latin diminutive Bulinns agree with the French in form rather 

 than adopt a Latin feminine noun, biillina based on the Latin feminine 

 India. Accordingly, the word Bulitms is a relatively modern, i8th 

 century, Latin name. It is to be noted that Adanson had rather 

 advanced views on nomenclature and sought to use names which were 

 not preoccupied. For instance, he says (p. XVIII): " J'agirai de 

 meme a I'egard des noms adjectifs, tels que la tuilee, la chambree, la 

 tanee, etc. Je leur substituerai un terme neuf, qui n'aura eu jusqu'ici 

 aucune signification." 



Agassiz, i842-46rt> 13, interprets Biiliiuis as a corrupted derivative 

 of Bulla. 



(b) Buliiiius. — According to Agassiz, i842-46a, 13, Llerrmann- 

 sen, 1846, 147, and Leunis, 1883a, 887, Bulimiis is derived from the 

 Greek ^oi'Ai|U,os, meaning a ravenous hunger. Compare the medical 

 terms bulimia, bulimiasis, bulimy, and bulimic, namely, an excessive 

 or morbid hunger which sometimes occurs in idiots and insane persons 

 and is also a symptom of diabetes mellitus and of certain cerebral 

 lesions. 



(c) The Secretary has examined the original documents with the 

 following results : 



(d) Bulinns Adanson, 1757, 5-7, pi. i, is a pre-Linnean monotypic 

 generic name without nomenclatorial status under the Code but avail- 

 able, of course, as bibliographic reference. 



(e) Bulimus Scopoli, 1777, 392, is cited without philologic deriva- 

 tion and attributed to "Adans." The original species of Adanson's 

 " Le Bulin " is not cited nor is any definite reference given to "Adans." 

 It is entirely possible that Bulimus, 1777, is a mistranscription or a 

 misprint for Bulinus, 1757, and in fact, Kennard and Woodward, 

 1924, Proc. Malac. Soc. Lond., p. 127, have made out a very strong 

 case for this interpretation in reproducing on p. 127 the figures of 

 Adanson and calling attention to the printing of Bulinus Adanson 



