observations on Pundum until Dr. Schacko, of Berlin, in a study of 

 the allied European species, pygmxa, established the correctness of my 

 work. 



The multiplication of generic terms has not been confined to 

 students of mollusca; ornithologists, entomologists, botanists and 

 doubtless students of other divisions are uttering their anathemas 

 against this ruthless destruction of the Linnaean idea. So far and so 

 rapidly has it gone in botany that a distinguished botanist at Harvard 

 averred sarcastically that you had to consult the morning paper for 

 the latest name! The distinguished zoologist, Dr. Charles Sedgwick 

 MiNOT, in a paper on "Zoological Problems" in speaking of the 

 Linnaean system of nomenclature, says: "We have retained the form, 

 while we have rejected the principle of nomenclature introduced by 

 Linnaeus, who used a generic name in a wide sense to indicate the 



kind At present genera are also special groups and 



approximate to a single species so far has the subdivision gone. It 

 results that the name we call generic is no longer generic in value. Of 

 the two extremes the Linnsean is, I believe, preferable. I expect to 

 see a large number of genera set aside hereafter." The evil of the 

 whole matter is that while we respect the work of our leaders in mala- 

 cology a rigid attitude insists that priority must be recognized despite 

 the man who gives the name. "An original" as Audubon calls him 

 = Rafinesque; a curious character who conceived a ridiculous 

 method of classification = Bolten, or one who never saw or figured 

 the soft parts stands in the same catagory with the masters. Mr. 

 Jukes Browne, in the Journal of the Malacological Society of London, 

 (Vol. XI, p. 59,) in his synopsis of the family Veneridx, in discussing 

 nomenclature says, "Again if Bolten's Museum Catalogue is rec- 

 ognized as a scientific publication, and is not excluded from the law 

 of priority, his names would supplant those of Lamarck, which have 

 been in general use for a century and' more. Moreover Bolten's 

 Catalogue gives no definitions of genera or sub-genera and is absolutely 

 devoid of any scientific value; while Lamarck's genera were properly 

 discriminated and defined. I hold, therefore, that such a displace- 



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