lUOT.j NATURAL SC1P:NCES of niLLADELPIIIA. 3tJ7 



adds any strength to the case for the ailoption of ('lava Maityn as a 

 systematic name. 



Gmelin's use of the word C'Utra in a generic sense for a Coelenterate 

 animal, though citetl by Cossmann as of 1789, is really not earlier flian 



1791. and until very recently has been regarded as of 1792.'" 



On the twenty-sixth page of part \l of (imelin's work (j). o056, 

 No. 19) there is a reference to a paper of Rraun, pviljlished in the tenth 

 vohmie of the Scliriftcn der GescUschajt Naturforschcndc Freunde zu 

 Berlin, page 58. This pajx'r has been stated to have been issued in 



1792, and if so the volume in which it is cited cannot be of earlier date.'^ 

 Lately M. \'ignal, who has made a specialty of the Cerithiida^, proposed 



the name'^ Pseudovertagus for forms allied to C. aluco Linue, which 

 have an external appearance more or less like those of the type of 

 Murcx nrtagus Jiune, but want the strong spiral plication on the 

 pillar. After examining the specimens in the Museum, 1 am of the 

 opinion that this se})aration is absolutely justified. The fossil forms 

 in Europe, according to M. Cossmann, are of this latter type, and so 

 are most of the American species ; but we have at least one species in 

 the Chipola Oligocene which is unmistakably of the type of C. vertagus, 

 so far as the plicate axis is concerned. There is also a recent species 

 resembling C. kochii Philippi, at Barbados. The absence of the Indo- 

 Pacifie type from the European Tertiaries may therefore be due to its 

 absence from that region faunally, and not to any ancestral character 

 of the Pseudovertagus. 



We are now in a position to review the facts above cited . 



We may judge from the aggregate of the data that, disregarding 

 preiinnean polynomialists, the fu-st binomial author to recognize the 



" Gmelin's Vol. TI of his edition of the Si/stema Nnturcc bears no date on 

 the title. 

 ■ " The paper referred to is M. Ikaun, Beitr. zur Gesch. d. Enif];e\veider-\vurmer. 



See Cams and Ensleniann, Bild. Zool., I, p. 362, where the date of Hraun's paper 

 is given as 1792. .Vlso H. C. Bolton, Cat. Sci. Periodicals, second edition, p. 1023, 

 where the date of Vol. X, above referred to, is given as 1792. 



It is possible that Braun's paper was issued earlier in separate form, l)ut u\ that 

 case we should not expect that Gmelin would cite the page of the completed vol- 

 ume, instead of the page of the separate issue. Possibly some part of Y?';,. 

 may have appeared earlier than the date of tlie completed vohnne. Ant. ( olhn 

 discusses the question in the Zool. Anzeii^er for January, lcS99, pp. 4, 5, and comes 

 to the conclusion that at least a portion of Gmelin's part ^'I ai)peared between 

 August 21, 1790, and Mav 11, 1791, probably in one of the early months ol 1/91. 

 I have for some time followed Garus and Englemann and Bolton in using the date 

 1792 for this volume of Gmehn, instead of 1790 as used by Sherborn in the Index 

 Aninialiiim (p. 221), .«ince the latter does not give detailed data in his prehniinary 

 bibliograpliv ; but after GolHn's discussion, called to my attention by Dr Stiles 

 recently, it "seems reasonable to compromise on 1791 as the most probable date. 



^» Biill. Mas. Hist. Xal. Paris, X. p. 3.-)S, 1904. 



