90 THE NAUTILUS. 
a question that I have often been asked ; in fact I have often made 
the same inquiry myself. When the Judge wanted to know of Sam. 
Weller whether he spelt his name with a V or a W he replied: 
“That depends on the taste and fancy of the speller.” And I think 
that in applying specific or varietal names, much depends on the 
taste and fancy of the one giving them. I think a definition of a 
variety might be, a shell which evidently belongs to a given species 
but which presents certain constant minor variations from the type. 
Sometimes these may be color, or of size, form, sculpture; in the 
* presence or absence of a tooth, or other detail, but it should always 
be constant to be worth anything, and even when it is, conchologists 
do not adhere to any strict rule in naming. Among the cones and 
olivas, coloring is often the principal distinguishing character ; while 
with shells like Donax and many of the Neritas and Neritinas, it 
counts for nothing. 
I believe that those of us who are more conservative should collect 
and study not with a view to the formation of new species, but to cut 
down and relegate to the synonymy the hundreds and perhaps thou- 
sands of false ones which already exist. Instead of making the 
inquiry over a puzzling form, isn’t it new, it would be better to ask, 
doesn’t it connect species that are now considered separate. Mr. 
Tryon gloriously inaugurated the work of cutting down the list of 
our names, and I believe that as great honor and fame awaits the 
iconoclast in the future, as can possibly belong to the most assiduous 
member of the new school of the present. 
ON CREPIDULA GLAUCA. 
BY JOHN FORD. 
In his recently published Catalogue of the Marine Mollusks of the 
Southeastern coast of the United States, Dr. Dall appears to have 
altogether ignored the existence of Crepidula glauca, Say, the figure 
of the latter, taken from Gould’s Invertebrata of Massachusetts, hav- 
ing been utilized by him to represent a juvenile C. fornicata, Say. 
The same mistake was made by my friend, the late Mr. Geo. W. 
Tryon, Jr., in one of his early publications, but a more recent 
examination of a large number of specimens satisfied him that the 
species was absolutely distinct from C. fornicata or any other species 
belonging to the genus. 
