The Non-Marine Mollusca of Portuguese East Africa. 159 



to me to be correct, and further included in the subgenus B. punctatus 

 Anton, again without nominating a genotype. 



In the second edition of Die Heliceen, 1860, von Martens adopted 

 Pfeiffer's emended spelling of the subgeneric name and designated 



punctatus as type. 



In 1889 Bourguignat repudiated von Martens' designation, on the 

 ground thsit punctatus was not included in Albers' original list, and nominated 

 pall'ens as type of Rachis, while creating a new genus, RacJmellus, with 

 punctatus as genotype. 



Now, Bourguignat's procedure would have been perfectly correct, were 

 it not possible to prove beyond all doubt that femssaci Dkr. is a synonym 

 of punctatus, so that, as ferussaci was included in Albers' original list, 

 punctatus is available as type of Albers' genus. 



Bunker first published a brief description of B. ferussaci in 1845, giving 

 the length of the shell as 7 lines, and stating that only 3 specimens, all 

 agreeing well with each other, were collected. Their locahty was 



Loanda, 



In 1853 * he repeated the description, adding that the species had also 

 been recently collected on the east coast of Africa, and published a figure of 

 the shell. The length of this is about 9, rather than 7 lines, but the other 

 figures on the plate are natural size, and it appears probable that the 

 numeral 7 in the description is a misprint, such as might easily be made 

 for the numeral 9. The shell figured is remarkable for being considerably 

 above the average size of punctatus and for having a few transverse 

 flammules on the last whorl, which are seldom so prominent in that species. 



There appears to be no doubt that this original set of ferussaci were 

 acquired by Hugh Cuming, who was in frequent correspondence with 

 Dunker. The Cuming collection in the British Museum contains a set of 

 3 shells, labelled " ferussaci, Dkr. Loander." They agree well together, 

 being of the same outstanding dimensions as Dunker's figure, which in 

 itself is strong evidence in favour of their being his originals, but one of them 

 (PL IV, fig. 22) not only coincides with it in outline, but shows vertical 

 flammules similar to those of the figure on the last whorl. In the front view 

 of the figure, these are spaced a little closer together to the left than m the 

 actual shell, while the back view shows 3 flammules and the shell one more, 

 but the rest of the colour pattern agrees so closely that it is practically 

 impossible not to accept the figure as a fair, but very slightly inaccurate 

 reproduction of the Cumingian shell. 



These specimens of ferussaci are completely identical with Indian 

 examples of punctatus, so that the former must be placed in synonymy and 

 B. punctatus stands as genotype of RhacJiis. 



* For references see p. IGO. 



