Cjclostoma and Pomatias. 179 



be applied only to the genus which contains "Turbo scalaris; " 

 nor will he be content to write Cydostoma, Drap., because 

 there was a previous Gyclostoma, Lamarck, thousjh not in 

 use. But he will not accept the only logical conclusion of 

 his own argument, which, if granted to be true, would necessi- 

 tate Cyclostoma superseding Scalaria. So he hunts for 

 something earlier, and finds Scala, Klein ; but then this is 

 prebinomial, so will not do, and so he catches at a straw, and 

 finds Scala, Humphrey, ' Museum Colonnianum,' 1797, two 

 years antedating Cyclostcnaa, Lamarck, and which has been 

 used by Mr. Dall. What is the Jiistory of tliis Scala, Hum- 

 phrey ? It seems scarcely to be believed that its authority 

 rests upon the fact that a name, "anonymous and undcscribed" 

 {Dall) J was inserted in a sale catalogue — nothing more than a 

 pre-Liiniean name applied to a shell for sale ; and this is to 

 be enough to give it post-Linnean authority ! It may be 

 expected after this that frequent reference will be made ninety 

 years hence to '' Stevens's " sale catalogues, for would there 

 not be Scala, the precedent for their authoritative use *. 



Lastly, Mr. Newton objects to the last part of Brit. Assoc. 

 E-ule 10, which allows the retention of a generic or specific 

 name if no similar prior name is in use ; and he refers to the 

 American and French rules, which cannot claim to have been 

 yet accepted generally even in the countries in which they 

 originated, whereas the B. A. rules have the highest autho- 

 rity and the widest usage. That this liule 10 is generally 

 accepted on the continent has been proved by references in this 

 very discussion, for I showed in my last notes that two of the 

 leading zoologists of the continent, G. 0. Sars and Schulze, 

 observed it, and all the couchologists who write Cyclostunia, 

 Drap. — and their name is legion — do the same. Mr. Newton 

 asks whether I am aware that in my recent " Revision of 

 British MoUusca,'"' 1890, where I " place under review some 

 seventy or eighty genera, about a dozen of them are preoccu- 

 pied names f, ^nd whether they remain so in xny desire to 

 carry out strictly to the letter my interpretation of the latter 

 portion of Eule 10." I am always thankful to be put right 

 when 1 am wrong; but I am not aware of any thing of tlie 

 kind, and think that Mr. Newton is here again under a 



* I cannot acquiesce in Mr. Ball's conclusions, but a very full state- 

 ment of the case by him will be found in Bull. Soc. Comp. Zool. vol. xviii, 

 (1889) p. ^99. 



t ()ne name, Cryptaxis, I advisedly retained, thoujjh knowing it to be 

 precccupied and that it could not stand. I was unwilling to give a new 

 generic name to a species which, when better knoAvn, will probably hnd 

 a resting-place in an existing genus, and therefore for the present thought 

 it best to leave it with Jetfreys's description and Jetl'reys's name. 



12* 



