THE WEST AJ^IERICAN MOLLUSKS OF THE GENUS ALABA 



By Paul Bartsch, 



Assistant Curator, Division of Mollusks, U. S. National Museum. 



The genus Alaha received a most unfortunate treatment by Dr. 

 P. P. Carpenter in his Catalogue of Mazathxn Shells (pp. 365-370, 

 1856), in which he described no less than ten species, bestowing 

 specific names upon eight, only one of which has been found identi- 

 fiable to date. Mr. E. A. Smith, who has charge of the conchological 

 collections in the British Museum, in reviewing the genus Alaha,"' 

 writes on pages 538-539: 



All the species above enumerated are represented in the British Museum, as are 

 also those species described by P. P. Carpenter in the " Catalogue of Mazatlan Shells." 

 But these, with one exception, I have purposely omitted, for the mutilated condition 

 of the specimens is such that it is impossible to say to what genus they (when perfect) 

 may have belonged. And here I can not refrain, although always averse to censuring 

 criticism, from condemning most energetically that pernicious practice of describing 

 fragments of minute specimens and assigning specific names to them. It merely 

 results in burdening science with a mass of literature almost useless, for it is simply 

 an impossibility for anyone to identify their specimens from the description of those 

 miserable fragments characterized in the Mazatlan Catalogue. Describe them and 

 welcome, for no harm is thereby done, albeit but little good; but for the sake of others 

 let us not name them. 



I heartily agree with the above sentiments. 

 The species described by Doctor Carpenter are: 

 Alaha supralirata. 

 Alaha violacea. 

 Alaha terehralis. 

 Alaha alahastrites. 

 Alaha scalata. 

 ? Alaha conica. 

 ? Alaha mutans. 

 ? Alaha laguncula. 

 ?? Alaha, sp. ind. (a). 

 ? Alaha, sp. ind. (b). 



aProc. Zool. Soc. London, 1875, pp. 538-540. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 39— No. 1 781 . 



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