118 



Although known to naturalists for more than a century, there is still some 

 difference of opinion as to which of the specific names that have been pro- 

 posed for this shell should be retained. Magellanicus is clearly the oldest, 

 but it has been objected to by some naturalists on the ground that it contra- 

 venes that rule of the British Association which says that no specific name 

 should be retained that tends to perpetuate error. Verrill (in a recent 

 Study of the Family Pectinidfe, published in 1897*) says that P. Magellanicus 

 is a " bad and misleading name, if applied to this species," which he identi- 

 fies with the Miocene P. Clintonius described by Say in 1824, and calls 

 Chlamys {Placopecten) Clintonius. Dall, on the other hand, in 1898, has 

 expressed the opinion that the recent shell is distinct from P. Clintonius, and 

 "sees no reason why Gmelin's name (Magellanicus) "given in error as to 

 the true habitat of this species, but universally familiar, should not continue 

 to be used. If, however," he adds, " an exaggerated purism demands a 

 change, the next most appropriate name is that of Solander [Ostrea grandis) 

 criven without description in the Portland Catalogue, described in the Bank- 

 sian M.S.S., and cited by Humphrey as Pecten grandis, ' the Great Compass 

 shell from Newfoundland, with nearly equal valves,' remarks which cannot 

 possibly apply to any other species." f 



Sir J. W. Dawson states that Dr. G. F. Matthew has found specimens of 

 P. Magellanicus in the Leda clay of St. John, N.B. 



Pecten (Camptonectes) Grcenlandicus, Sowerby. 



Pecten Grcenlandicus, Sowerby (1843) ; and G. O. Sars (1878). 

 Camptonectes Grcenlandica, Verrill (1897). 



Dredged by the writer in 1871, 1872 and 1873, in considerable numbers 

 living, but of rather small size, in the deep-sea mud, at depths of from 200 to 

 313 fathoms, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to the north, south-east and south 

 of the Island of Anticosti. As many as fifty or sixty living specimens were 

 picked at a time from one weighted hempen tangle, or " swab," as the sailors 

 would call it, that was used as well as the dredge. It was quite common to 

 find individuals each clasping a single fibre of the swab between its valves 

 transversely, at about the mid-length of the animal, and so tightly that one , 

 had to cut the fibi-e on each side of the shell, in order to save the specimen- 



In the summer of 1899, a few similar but much larger specimens of this 

 shell were dredged by Mr. A. P. Low, in from 15 to 25 fathoms, mud, in 

 Richmond Gulf, Hudson Bay. 



According to Sir J. W. Dawson, P. Grmnlandicus has been found fossil 

 in the Pleistocene deposits of Maine, but not in those of Canada. 



* Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. X., p. 78. 



* Transactions of the Wagner Free Institute of Science of Philadelphia, vol. in., pp. 726 

 and 727. 



