60 SPECIES OF THE SYSTEMA. 
owax tramehts, 
In both the writings and the collection of Linneus, two 
species, the D. anatinus and trunculus of Lamarck, the latter 
considered typical by the French, Germans and Italians, the 
former by nearly all the writers on British conchology, were 
manifestly confounded under this designation. Since the 
name can only be retained for the one or the other, it is 
requisite to balance the claim on either side, in order to arrive 
at an equitable decision. The D. trunculus, as it appeared in 
the tenth edition of the ‘Systema,’ had four synonyms attached 
to it. Of the authors cited, Gualtier and Bonanni represent 
the Mediterranean shell; Lister alone the English one; Argen- 
ville, in all probability, neither; his wretched figure (of denti- 
culata ?) has, however, far more the aspect of the abruptly 
truncated Mediterranean one than of its rival. In the final 
edition the figures of two more shells, whose features are op- 
posed to the definition, are erroneously referred to; Klein’s, 
copied from Lister (Hist. Conch. pl. 275, f. 216, top), being 
more like anatinus, pairs off with Adanson, whose representa- 
tion of D. elongata is more like the rival trunculus: the words 
of the ‘Fauna Suecica,’ being merely copied from the ‘Systema,’ 
that synonym must be regarded as neutral. The preponderance 
of synonyms, then, is in favour of the more abruptly truncated 
Mediterranean shell; far more so is the testimony of the 
description: the expression “‘antice levi” being perfectly 
accurate when applied to that shell, but incorrect when re- 
ferred to anatinus, whose shorter extremity is always more 
or less corrugated in a concentric direction ; ‘‘intus violacea,” 
too, is a character habitual to the former, comparatively rare 
in the latter; whilst the negation to the species, in the 
‘Museum Ulrice,’ of lateral teeth (which are developed in the 
latter, but not in the former), furnishes a most important 
argument for restricting the name trunculus to the Mediter- 
ranean shell figured by Born (Test. Vind. pl. 4, f. 8, 4). 
