VIVIPARA. 19 



name ?" I recognize Vivipara viridis, Hanley, 

 simply because I am acquainted with the spe- 

 cies ; and if I did not know it by specimen, 

 figure or description, the name would not aid 

 me at all in identifying it, for all Viviparas are 

 green, and fifty species are as green as viridis 

 — some of them more so. It will suit my pur- 

 pose equally well whether the species be named 

 cceruleus, ritfus, grandis or ^parvus, so it has a 

 name, and one which, being founded on the 

 honest principle of absolute priority, without 

 Linnaean or any other limitation, shall not be 

 changed for any fancied improvement.* 



I pointed out in the Proceedings of the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences for 

 1862 the fact that four-banded species were 

 North American, and those with three bands 

 European, that one species only has two bands 

 — V. Bermondiana, D'Orb., of Cuba, — and that 

 all these are distinguished from the Asiatic 

 group by color, the bands in the former being 



* See Haldeman's very just remarks on specific nomen- 

 clature, Hold., p. 19. 



[45] 



