A4 SPECIES OF THE SYSTEMA. 
Tellina ptstforimis. 
This common West Indian shell has long been recognised, 
the original description having proved sufficiently ample for the 
purpose. The specific name was probably derived from the 
expression “ pisiformis,” used by Gualtier in the text that ac- 
companies his coarse yet artistical engravings. ‘The reference 
to his drawing (t. 7, f. C, as in the tenth edition, not G, as by 
a typographical blunder it appears in the twelfth) was, never- 
theless, incorrect, for the Cyclas he has so rudely delineated is 
devoid of nearly every one of the required characteristics. It 
must be recollected, however, that no figure of the species in- 
tended was then extant. There are specimens (Tellina pisi- 
formis, Hanley in Sow. Thesaur. Conch. pl. 56, f. 30) in the 
Linnean collection, which answer accurately, and alone do so, 
to the description ; but, from a paper which accompanies them, 
one cannot doubt that they were introduced subsequently to the 
decease of our author. 
The white variéty was possibly the 7. flexuosa of Say. 
VeWlina Dibaricata, 
The locality, being here authenticated by the name of the 
authority for it, becomes of importance. The only Mediterra- 
nean species that will at all agree with the description in the 
‘Systema’ is the Lucina, which, originally termed commutata 
by Philippi (Moll. Sicil. vol. i. pl. 8, f. 15), was afterwards re- 
cognised by him for the true Linnean divaricata. That illus- 
trious naturalist justly remarks, that “ magnitudine pisi—gibba 
—striz tenuissime ”’ and “ Habitat in m. Mediterraneo, Logie” 
clearly point to the little and delicately sculptured European 
shell, rather than to the coarser, larger, and now commoner 
West Indian species, which usurps the name in almost every 
collection. As corroborative of these convincing arguments 
(not that our author would have scrupled to unite the two spe- 
cies), it may be mentioned that the figures of the larger species 
