38 PiiocincDiNGs OK xui'; jialacologicai, society. 



have them bar the use of ai)y of Eolten's names in preference to 

 those of Lamarck. 



I also continue to maintain that Dr. Dall made a mistake in his 

 selection of a type for Paphia (Bolten). As he repudiates having 

 made any mistake, I proceed to make it more clear. In selecting 

 a type for Paphia in 1903 he proceeded by elimination only without 

 any other consideration, for he wrote simply, "from Paphia, Bolten, 

 Sunetta and Meretrix have been eliminated, leaving only species 

 ordinarily called Tapes, which must retain Bolten's name." That 

 is true, but what are we to understand b}' the genus Meretrix? 

 Dr. Dall himself claims it as ' monotypical ', and it certainly can 

 only carry the species of the Vemis meretrix group, not the large 

 and comprehensive assemblage afterwards catalogued by Lamarck. 

 For the purpose of elimination the genus Meretrix is that recognized 

 by modern conchologists (including Dr. Dall) and typified by 

 V. meretrix, and no such Meretrix occurs in Bolten's list. No one 

 would now include in this genus the Callinta or Macrocallista ty])e, 

 i.e., either Venus chione, Linn., or V. gi^antea, Gmelin, which under 

 the name of V. ala-avis is the first species on Bolten's list. 



Since we cannot adopt the name Callista from Poll, an<l since 

 Macrocallinta was not proposed till 1876, while Tapes was established 

 by Megerle in 1811, I hold that Tapes was wrongly displaced by 

 Dr. Dall, wlio should have eliminated the species of Tapes and have 

 selected V. ala-avis as the type of Bolten's Paphia. The question 

 is, does such a mistake invalidate his selection of a type, or is any 

 selection good on whatever grounds it is made ? The Committee 

 can solve the question in this case by simplj- authorizing the iise 

 of the name Callista for the Venus chione group. 



