VENUS. ! 79 
words of our author, renders the correct determination of 
edentula a task of no small difficulty. 
The two principal claimants for the Linnean appellation are 
the richly-coloured West Indian species so named by Chemnitz 
and his followers, and the more homely-looking congener, 
which Reeve, who does not assent to the reasoning of Philippi, 
has named in honour of that illustrious naturalist. The 
principal arguments of the latter against the traditional appro- 
priation of the name to the Chemnitzian species are, that it is 
a native of the West Indian, not the East Indian, seas, is richly 
tinted with orange internally, instead of being devoid of colour, 
and is not conspicuously wrinkled externally. To this it may 
be replied that the stated locality is simply “ Indiis,” not 
“Tndis Orientalibus” (‘ Indiis Occidentalibus” is never used 
by our author, at least in his Vermes Testacea; ‘ India” and 
“O. Indico” seem to confine the habitat to the Asiatic seas, 
whilst “Indiis” may be either regarded as more indefinitely 
comprehensive, or even perchance as actually equivalent to 
“Tndiis Occidentalibus’’); that the absence of colour in the 
Linnean specimens is not to be wondered at, considering the 
worn and bleached condition of most of his shells; and that 
“rugosa” (wrinkled, which, indeed, both the Lucine are, though 
differing as to degree) is all that is affirmed of the Linnean 
species: moreover, Philippiana is not semitransparent, as de- 
manded, and agrees not so well as to the lunule. Yet it must 
be recollected, that the colouring is almost too deep to become 
effaced by any ordinary degree of bleaching, and, if seen at all, 
was too remarkable to be passed over in silence; that Linnzeus 
was not in the habit of noticing any but the more striking 
characters, and hence would not have used the term “rugosa,” 
had not the wrinkles been decidedly coarse and conspicuous ; 
moreover, that if he had meant the Chemnitzian shell, he 
would most likely have indicated the delineation of it in 
Lister (pl. 260). I shall not pretend to solve this knotty 
point; but merely observe that the original type must be 
sought for in the Upsala Museum, for, although the species 
was previously published in the tenth edition of the ‘ Systema,’ 
it was not in his collection at the time (as appears from his 
lists). ‘The specimen in his own cabinet which most nearly 
approaches the described features, and which possibly was 
