STROMBUS. 265 
to figures of the short-tailed form of the Rostellaria rectirostris, 
a shell whose characters, being in harmony with the descrip- 
tion, must consequently reassume, as Deshayes has remarked, 
the appellation originally bestowed upon it by Linneus. The 
more ample details in the ‘Museum Ulrice’ exactly apply to 
the only drawing there cited as illustrative, to wit, Argenyville’s 
representation of the above-named Rostellaria. Should the 
long-tailed Chinese variety be hereafter reputed a distinct 
species, it is worth remembering that the “rostrum teste 
dimidio brevius” (M. U.) would not so fittingly apply to that 
form as to the other. The shortness, however, was, perhaps, 
after all, only the result of accident. In the twelfth edition of 
the ‘Systema,’ Linneus unfortunately quoted, in addition to 
that figure in Seba which represented the shell he had pre- 
viously indicated, two others in the same work, both usually 
referred to the Ff. curvirostris, though one of them looks more 
like an immature R. curta. From this circumstance arose the 
common acceptation of the first-named shell as the representa- 
tive of the Linnean species. Dillwyn perceived the error, for 
he has solely referred to the ‘Museum Ulrice’ and the tenth 
edition of the ‘Systema,’ in the synonymy of his S. wnicornis 
(R. rectirostris of Lamarck), but, from deference to the opinion 
of others, has unwisely continued the name /fusus to the 
curvirostris. 
In the ‘Mantissa’ our author has bestowed the name of 
Strombus clavus upon an immature example of R. rectirostris. 
Having possibly perceived its identity with his previously 
constituted species, Linnzeus perhaps intended to conceal the 
double appellation, by transferring the name fusus from his 
earlier species to the R. curvirostris, which latter he has thus 
described at large in his revised copy, and eventually marked 
for the species in his own collection: —“ Testa fusiformi, 
subulata, pallidé testacea, leviuscula; anfractus breves, preter 
apicem anfractus 5 seu 6, longitudinaliter, seu ad suturam, 
crenati. Faux ovato-lanceolata, alba glaberrima, utrinque ex- 
currens in canalem; canalis anterior lanceolatus, adnatus, ex- 
currens tertium anfractum; posterior subulatus, longitudine 
vix aperture, sinu oblongo distinctus a labis exteriore, margine 
nigro: labium exterius gibboso-marginatum, postice dentibus 
5 seu 6 obtusis glabris; posterioribus majoribus. Labium 
2M 
