Miscellaneous. 167 
On Oliva auricularia, Lam., O. aquatilis, Reeve, and O. auricularia, 
D’Orb. By F. P. Marrar. 
The history of these shells is somewhat remarkable—so much so 
that each author who has written upon them has had some informa- 
tion to impart of a character differing considerably from that of his 
predecessor. 
Lamarck described a species which he called O. auricularia 
(Auimaux sans Vertébres); the former part of this description 
refers to the O. aquatilis, Reeve, pl. 18. fig. 38, while the latter 
(“columella callosa, complanata”) refers to the O. auricularia, Lam., 
as figured by Reeve, pl. 18. fig. 39. 
D’Orbigny (Voy. Amér. Mérid. vol. ix. pl. 59. figs. 20-22) has 
figured a shell, accompanied by the animal, and named it Olivancil- 
laria auricularia, Lam., from which species it differs so much as to 
be regarded as even generically distinct. Deshayes, in a footnote to 
the description of O. auricularia, Lam., remarks that D’Orbigny has 
confounded his shell with Lamarck’s species, and considers D’Or- 
bigny’s species to be O. biplicata, Sow., quoting the figure in Wood’s 
Supplement. Again, this author, under the species O. biplicata, 
Sow., gives D’Orbigny’s O. auricularia as a synonym, and describes 
the difference existing between the two species. In the Tankerville 
Catalogue, page 33, Appendix No. 2331, we have a description of 
the two species under the name of 0. patula seu aperta, Sol. MS., 
the former portion of this description referring to the O. auricularia, 
Reeve, or the thick African species, and the latter portion to the O. 
aquatilis, Reeve, or the thin South-American shell. 
Duclos (Genre Olive, pl. 29. figs. 4-7) has not only figured the two 
shells hitherto confounded under the O. auricularia, Lam., but has 
introduced two figures of another allied species or variety (pl. 29. 
figs. 5 & 6). 
Reeve, in his ‘ Monograph on the genus Oliva,’ in 1851, separated 
the shells into two species, viz. O. awricularia, Lam., and O. aqua- 
tilis, Reeve, but gave a wrong locality to the former, viz. Brazil 
instead of Africa. The Messrs. Adams, in their valuable work on 
the ‘Genera of Recent Mollusea,’ vol. i. pp. 140 & 141, give a de- 
scription of the genus Olivancillaria, D’Orb., and figure at pl. 15. 
fig. 2 a copy of D’Orbigny’s animal and shell, with the name O, ve- 
sica, Gmelin. On the same plate, fig. 2%, O. auricularia, Reeve, is 
given as the shell of D’Orbigny, the first having an open canaliculate 
spire, and the second a closed canal; in fact two species could 
scarcely be selected that differ more widely. Dr. Gray, in his work 
on the Olivide, p. 19, gives the Claneophila auricularia, Lam., as the 
O. aquatilis, Reeve, and O. patula, Sow., as a synonym, and to the 
thick African shell he has given a new name, Cl. gibbosa, Gray. 
What inferences can we draw from these contradictory statements? 
First, that the O. vesica, Gmel., is the O. auricularia, Lam., in part, as 
well as the O. patula,Sow., in part, and of Duclos in part, these authors 
all believing that the O. aquatilis, Reeve, was only a variety of O. 
auricularia, Lam.; and the credit of distinguishing them as species 
