430 SPECIES OF THE SYSTEMA. 
from the narrower end. Interior with a faint central brown 
spatula-shaped stain, intersected by the external rays, which 
appear more or less visibly through the very thin white glaze 
that lines the rest of the cavity. Length three-fourths of an 
inch; breadth half an inch. Worn individuals exhibit a brown 
cross upon a white ground. 
Patella veticulata., 
Schréter, who studied the limpets with much perseverance, 
appears to have been the only original writer who has confi- 
dently suggested a species as the representative of the Linnean 
Patella. His supposed recognition was of course accepted by 
Gmelin, who has closely followed his views in the nomenclature 
of the limpets, and has bestowed Latin specific appellations 
upon the many varieties enumerated by Schroter, in his ‘ New 
Litteratur, &c. Yet brief and indefinite as was the description 
of Linneus, it nevertheless specifies a striking peculiarity, 
“ superficies intertexta fibris gibbis reticulatis horizontalibus et 
perpendicularibus albis,” that can be discerned in few, if any, of 
the Patellide, and assuredly not in the object delineated by 
Schréter. His engraving, which reminds one of some such 
shell as the Hipponyx radiata, does not exhibit the vein-like 
network attributed to the surface of reticulata, but merely a 
blunt radiating costellation: his shell, moreover, is stated to be 
wholly white, a hue attributed to the raised sculpture only (as 
if in contradistinction to the ground-colour) in the species of 
Linneus. 
The identity of the two shells cannot consequently be re- 
garded as an established fact, since nothing but the most 
perfect agreement in all particulars could prove it, in the 
absence of any illustrative synonym as corroborative evidence. 
Were, indeed, conjecture allowable, one would rather suggest the 
Sicilian Pedicularia for its representative ; but the ambiguity 
which involves it can only be dispelled by an examination of the 
typical specimens in the Dronningen Museum. Our author did 
not himself possess an example. 
