78 • Remarks on Certain Species of 



" I am inclined to believe that Mr. Say's indisposition to multiply 

 species induced him to unite the three sliells,* with which we are now 

 confused, under the one name inornata, and if it was not for the word 

 polished, I would believe that my shell was the type from which his 

 description was written. All of these shells are, I believe, found in 

 Pennsylvania, certainlj' inornata By. and fuliffinosa, and we can scarcely 

 believe that they escaped the observation of so industrious a naturalist 

 as Mr. Say. We have a similar instance of his uniting allied species in 

 the avara group, in which he certainly embraced H. Postelliana and 

 espiloca, and probably others which do not correspond with the descrip- 

 tion of the Florida avaraV 



Having beard it attributed to Say, that he never volunteered 

 to correct errors, and even avoided indicating the shell (when 

 directly applied to) intended by his description, I had further 

 correspondence with Dr. Ravenel, who, under date 10th April, 

 1860, favored me with an explanatory letter, from which I 

 extract the following : — • 



" In answer to your question whether Say ever corrected labels, I can 

 tell you that I sent him the H. Hopetonensis without a name, merely 



writing 'Helix S. Car.,' and he returned some of the specimens 



with my label filled up ' H. tridentata var. ephabus Say.' I sent him 

 specimens of a variety of the same, from the gardens in Charleston ; he 

 then wrote in pencil on my label, ' H. tridentata var. ephabus, — the same 

 as the shell which you sent me several years ago.' I sent him H. Pos- 

 telliana with my label ' Helix S. Car.,' and he filled up the gap 



with ' avara Say.' With H. espiloca the same thing occurred. He cor- 

 rected, and also gave me names of our marine shells sent to him ; and when 

 I sent him new shells, he described them, and generally returned the 

 specimens with his paper. I therefore infer and believe that if he had 

 considered my label H. inornata incorrect, he would have corrected it ; 

 and at the same time, if he had not considered the shell to be inornata^ 

 he would certainly have described it as new. 



" I have before expressed the opinion to you that Mr. Say sometimes 



* Dr. Ravenel overlooks JI. glaphyra Say, but his explanatory suggestionB are 

 both interesting and valuable, 



