426 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol. xxix. 



plates, according to Chena's reprint, these indicatory letters are 

 omitted. The plan was given up. The cost of making the work cover 

 all the known species of shells proved prohibitory. The fifth proposed 

 volume, of which Dr. J. E. Gray once possessed some proof plates, 

 was never issued and the system never made public. 



The only discussion of Martyn's work as a whole which I have found 

 in the literature is contained in an article by E. von Martens in the Mal- 

 akozoologische Blatter (VII, pp. 141-148, Aug., 1860). This author 

 does not investigate the question of dates or editions and seems not 

 to have grasped the inwardness of the puzzling arrangement of the 

 lettering on the explanatory plates. He comes to the conclusion, since 

 there are no definitions and since Martyn did not accept some of the 

 Linnean genus names, that, therefore, we should reject Martyn's names 

 for genera, while his specific names may stand. This conclusion is 

 obviously not in accordance with present methods of treating nomen- 

 clature and can not be accepted. According to our current code of 

 rules for such matters, the names of both categories must stand or fall 

 together. 



In the main Mart3"n accepted the Linnean generic names. A few 

 names proposed by prelinnean authors, especially Rumphius, are pre- 

 ferred to those of the illustrious Swede. Some of the Linnean names 

 are used for different groups from those which the}^ originally covered, 

 and a few names, familiar in prelinnean literature but practically new 

 in a systematic sense, are employed in this work for the first time 

 binomially. The writer took the trouble to arrange the various gen- 

 era as indicated b}' the letters above referred to, hoping to get an out- 

 line of Mart3Mi's larger grouping, but found the result so unsatisfac- 

 tory as not to repay the trouble. The only influence the book should 

 have on contemporary nomenclature is connected with a few names for 

 the first time used binomially in its tables. The arrangement of the 

 names in the tables is at the first glance a little puzzling, but a small 

 amount of careful study soon enables one to understand it." 



The first name used is Alata of Klein and other nonbinomial authors 

 {Strombns Linnaeus), and it is applied to Stromhus jyadjicus Swainson, 

 the Alata arairwm of Mart}^, whose specific name, as long ago pointed 

 out by Morch, will take precedence. 



B'ucclnmn Martyn, is a hotch-potch of Linnean whelks and murices, 

 including species of Chrywdomus, Fusus, Struthiolaria, Zatirus^ Pur- 

 pura, Acanthina, etc., but a good many of his specific names have been 

 accepted. Bulla Martyn, as far as indicated by his first species, equals 

 Hydatina {physls Linnseus), but he would doubtless have included all 

 the Linnean Bullas { = Btdlaria Rafinesque, 1815). 



Clava Martyn as first used contained a Yertagus and a Potamides. 

 By taking his first species as the type, as I showed in 1892, we are 



« See page 429, postea. 



