SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

 UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



WASHINGTON. D. C. 



Jvine 2, 1931. 



Dr. F. Haas, 

 Senckenberg I.:use\Jin, 

 Victoria-Allee 7, 

 Frankfurt ajr. Kain, Germany. 



Dear Doctor Haas: 



Your fine letter of May 20 reached me last week, and the sepa- 

 rates and photographs promised me came yesterday, 



I think you have made some very serious errors in yo\ir treatment 

 of the South American Naiads. Your preliminary discussion of the genus 

 Anodontites is unfortunate in that it shows that you, like everybody else 

 I think, T.-ith the exception of nyself, do not understand the real type of 

 the genus, namely, crispatus Bruguiere. Ortmann's identification of 

 crispatus was erroneous; the shell he handled was Anodontites colombiensis 

 Marshall; consequently the subgenus Styganodon Liartens must stand. I think 

 it is one of the best of the subgenera or sections of Anodontites. Simpson, 

 unfortunately, included in his synonomy of crispatus, puberulus ffbuld and 

 reticulatus Sowerby . but you have made matters worse by including napoensis 

 Lea. All four of these are absolutely distinct species, and napoensis does 

 not belong even in the same subgenus as crispatus , but in a new subgenus 

 which I have just described., of which the type will be colombiensis Marshall, 

 The National Museum is about to publish a paper which I have prepared, giv- 

 ing detailed information, with excellent photographs, of the whole history 

 of Anodontites crispatus as type of the genus. 



Under soleniformis of Orb., nehringi and colombiensis surely are 

 in the wrong place. Vife have authentic specimens of soleniformis and of 

 nehringi , and the type of colombiensis ; in fact soleniformis is so dis- 

 tantly related to the other two species that it really should go in a sepa- 

 rate subgenus, in other words, these three species belong in three different 

 subgenera or sections. 



Upon your return from Africa we may discuss some of the other parts 

 of your paper or I may have prepared a review of it. Just now I am in a 

 hurry to write to you in the hope that my letter will reach you before you 

 start for Africa, because I want to urge upon you to collect, if possible, 

 some idutelid in a gravid condition. The great need at the present time in 

 the study of the family Lautelidae is confirmation or denial of Ihering's 

 stater.ient that they have what he calls a lasidivmi instead of a glochidium. 

 I have made strenuous efforts to obtain ripe embryos froi some South Ameri- 

 can species, but thus ihr have been unable to do so. I feel sure that 

 Ihering made a mistake, but until we prove him mistaken we must accept his 

 statement, because he is a naturalist of no mean standing, and it would not 

 do for us to say that there is no lasidium simply because we think such is 

 the case, while he claims to have actually observed them. 



