144 AMERICAN JOURNAL 



into two or three digitate processes ; anterior canal straight or 

 curved ; posterior canal running up the spire. 



A. pes-pelicani, A. pes-carbonaris. Recent, and as far down 

 as the Miocene. 



Mr. Meek writes me that, in a more perfect specimen of A. 

 biangulata, M. and H., than he has heretofore seen, he finds a 

 posterior canal, and can detect no character on which to separate 

 that species from the true Aporrhais. May it not belong to the 

 first subgenus ? 



Subgenus GONIOCHEILA, Gabb. PI. 13, f. 11, pi. 14, f. 12. 



Shell resembling the true Aporrhais in general form ; aperture 

 with a short posterior canal closely appressed to the spire ; an- 

 terior canal short and incurved; outer lip biangular, the upper 

 angle produced into a more or less prolonged, digitate process, 

 the lower not produced, but having on its lower face a faint 

 groove ; inner lip encrusted. 



A. (6r.) liratus, Conrad, A. (Gr.) Sowerbyi, Sby. =A. ParJcin- 

 sonii, Sby. But two known species, peculiar to the Eocene, un- 

 less A. biangulata, Meek and Hayden, should prove to belong 

 here. 



This group is well marked by the incurved anterior canal, the 

 short posterior canal, closely appressed to the spire, instead of 

 being long and diverging at its end, as in joes-pclicaiii and pes- 



This policy is bad, at best, but when combined with carelessness it is re- 

 prehensible. Aldrovandi had no idea of the binomial system. In the 

 present case he uses the name Aporrhais by itself, quotes Aristotle as its 

 originator, goes into a learned disquisition as to what that writer intended 

 by the name, and gives two perfectly characteristic, natural sized figures 

 of Pterocerabri/onia to illustrate his description ! See Aldrov. I)e Test., 

 cap. 13, pp. 343, 344, for the figures. The description immediately pre- 

 cedes the plates. 



Petiver, the next quoted author, has been also thoroughly examined by 

 me, but from the mixture of subjects, and the absence of any systematic 

 index in his volumes (" Gazophylacium "), I have failed to find either the 

 name or a figure of Aporrhais, though he illustrates several species of 

 Pterocera. He is eminently polynomial, often usiug four, five and six 

 words, and when two only are used, it is as a descriptive phrase, and not 

 in the sense of generic and specific names. 



Da Costa, the next author who uses the name, gives in his Brit. Shells, 

 1778, a figure of Pterocera, apparently P scorpio, Lam., as his idea of the 

 type of Aporrhais. He was certainly not, any more than his predecessors 

 in this subject, a disciple of Linnaeus. He quotes on one plate of his 

 work, " Cochlea-Helix-vel-depressa, CocMea- Clavicula depressiore, vel 

 breviore, Turbo sive Cochlea claviada productiore," &c. 



Dillwyn, Phil. Trans. 1823, vol. 2, pp. 395, 396, is the first author who 

 uses the name in its present sense. He proposes to separate a group of 

 Rostellarias, with Strombus pes-pelicani as the type. 



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