268 Mr. L. Reeve on the Synonymy of 



ticularize some of the features hitherto unnoticed or insufficiently 

 explained in Adenocalymna, Anemopcegma, Dolichandra, Mac- 

 fadyena, and several other genera, notifying at the same time 

 many new species collected by me. I have also brought together, 

 in several new groups, a great number of species that have either 

 fallen under ray observation, or that (not having been seen by me) 

 are recognizable from the ample descriptions of authors ; they are 

 scattered amongst the genera Bignonia, Spathodea, Tabebuia, 

 Tecoma, &c. In the descriptions that follow, M'hich are confined 

 almost entirely to plants of the New World, I have endeavoured 

 to detail the specific characters as laconically as possible com- 

 patible with the object in view, and to expose more amply the 

 features that distinguish each genus or each peculiar group ; 

 for to the want of such details we must attribute the confusion 

 now existing throughout the family. 



In this early stage of the investigation, I have not attempted 

 any arrangement of the genera; and though I recommend 

 the system of distribution adopted by the illustrious DeCan- 

 doUe, I have not thought it necessary to follow it here. The 

 remarks now offered must be considered, as they are intended 

 to be, rambling contributions of observed facts towards a better 

 knowledge of the family; they are given as mere examples 

 of the groups proposed, and are confined either to the plants 

 of my own collection, which have enabled me to study their 

 characters more fully, or to a portion of those, more especially 

 typical specimens, in the herbarium of the British Museum, and 

 to a very few in the rich and extensive Hookerian collection at 

 Kew. There still remains a large amount of new plants to be 

 described, or of known species to be better characterized. These 

 I leave to abler hands, hoping to see the task elaborated by some 

 careful botanist, who, after long and cautious study, may be en- 

 abled to schedule the species into sections by subdivisions, so 

 as to avoid the necessity for frequent repetition of many essen- 

 tial features in the specific characters (now unavoidable), and 

 thus render the determination of specimens more easy to the 

 student. 



[To be continued.] 



XXXI. — A Revision of the Synonymy of the Boat and Melon 

 Volutes, ' Les Gondolieres ' of Lamarck. By Lovell Reeve, 

 F.L.S., F.G.S. 



The Boats and Melons, as the large, boldly-convoluted shells of 

 this tribe of Volutes have been aptly called, were known to authors 

 before the time of Linnaeus, more especially to Klein, Petiver, 

 and Seba, by the term Cymbium ; and the word has been used 



