238 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 
Botanists. He says (p. 127): ‘‘If the final member of a nomen 
compositum is a noun, the compound will have the form and 
gender and inflectional stem of that noun,’’ and further (p. 
129): “The gender of the genus name, when it is made a noun, 
depends not on the termination, but upon the gender of the 
noun forming the final element of the compound.” 
This rule is, however, not easily applied in cases where the 
compound has been so distorted, that it is hard to tell whether 
to consider the word as a genuine noun or some kind of mal- 
formed adjective made to pose as a noun. Such examples 
may be found in Anodonta, Alasmirdonta, Symphynota and 
Mycetopoda. ‘To treat them as masculines because the final 
elements of each of them is a masculine noun, it would be 
futile to attempt. We must leave them as feminines. But 
the rule is fully applicable to all names terminating in ofszs, 
which must be feminines (7 os) and those in dema, desma, 
branchus and rhynchus, all of which are neuter—ro fjpa, 
70 deopa a band, (not from 7 déopuy, a bundle), 7a Bpdyxua, gills, 
(not from 6 Bpayxos, hoarseness), and 70 puyxos. 
Many of our conchologists have been puzzled how to handle 
specific names with such terminations as we find in adjectives, 
and the mistaken idea that all specific names are to be consid- 
ered as adjectives has led them occasionally to inflect these 
nouns as adjectives. Unio clava has often been written 
U7. clavus, whereby the intention of the original author to 
compare its shape to that of a c/wé was perverted so as to make 
it look like a mai/. The name U/nzo calceolus, suggesting the 
resemblance of the shell to a slipper, was changed to A/arga- 
rita calceola, which suggests nothing at all. While such 
inflections are obviously wrong, it might appear reasonable, 
when the noun denotes a living being and the Latin language 
has two forms for resp., male and female individuals, that the 
form should be used which corresponds to the gender of the 
generic name. (Unio corvunculus may thus become Lamfp- 
silis corvuncula, Buta consistent application of such a rule 
may lead to a perversion of the significance of the orig- 
inal name. For example: the European stag-beetle (Zucanus 
4 
