116 AMERICAN JOURNAL 



genus — Euomphalus — wliicli Sowerby established in 1814, 

 (Min. Conch., tab. 45.) This evidently liberates my original 

 name, and Ilerrmannsen, in the appendix to his " Generum 

 Malacozorum, " very properly I'estores it. It was supposed 

 that this was the Melatoma of Swainson, and Mr. Anthony 

 adopted this name. But it is evident that Mr. Swainson's Me- 

 latovia is not my Sckizostoma . By reference to his figure (Mal- 

 acology, p. 342, f. 104) it will be observed at once that there 

 has never been observed in the United States any of the group 

 of which that figure is the type, while it is known that they 

 exist in the islands of the Indian Ocean. Mr. Swainson says, 

 (p. 202) that his Melatoma was 'founded upon a remarkable 

 Ohio shell' sent by Rafiuesque. Now, as no member of the 

 family Mdanidie with a cut in the lip has ever been found in 

 the Ohio, where such hosts of active collectors have sinice pur- 

 sued their investigations, it is perhaps beyond the bounds of 

 possibility that the specimen sent by Rafinesque, &o eminently 

 careless and reckless as he always was, should ever have been 

 found there. Indeed, if the specimen figured was sent by Mr. 

 Eafinesque to Mr. Swainson, then the question would arise 

 whether it had not been obtained by Mr. R. from some dealer 

 or collector, who may have obtained it from Asia. I have no 

 doubt of the Melatoma costaia, which Mr. Swainson has figured, 

 being exotic, and belonging to a group probably from the Phil- 

 ippine Islands. Mr. Anthony says, page 64, Proc. A. N. S., 

 1860, that 'it may be doubted whether Jtfr. Lea's fir^t name 

 will not eventually prevail, since, before he published Scltizos- 

 ioma, Bronn's genus of the same name had been called a syno- 

 nym of Bifrontia, Desh.' And that 'H. & A. Adams (Gen. 

 Rec. Moll., i. 105) do not aj'pear correct in giving preference to 

 Gyrotoma over Schizostoma, Lea,' &;c. Notwithstanding this, 

 Mr. Anthony in this paper, where he describes nine supposed 

 new species of this genus, adopts the generic name of Gyrotoma. 

 It may be added here, that Dr. Gray, in his Genera of Recent 

 MoUusca, gives Melatoma to Mr. Anthony, not to Swainson, 

 while he does not notice the name o^ Schizostoma. Mr. A. does 

 not pretend to claim it, of course, but adopts Gyrotoma, Mr, 

 Shuttleworth'sname, proposed in 1845, which, being three j^ears 

 later, cannot have precedence. 



" The genus Schizostoma seems to be capable of being divided 

 into two natural groups in the form of the fissura, the cut in the 

 lip. In one group this fissura is deep and direct, that is, paral- 

 lel with the suture or upper edge of the whorl ; in the other it 

 is not deep and is oblique to the suture. " 



In the same Journal, (April 1862,) was published a new 

 genus with the following name, description and remarks : — 



