406 TELLINID^. 



to have lost sight of the fact that Linne knew little 

 more of exotic shells than he conld glean from the 

 meagre accounts and inartistic figures of the authors 

 who had preceded him. It is also the D. trunculus of 

 Muller's ' Zoologia Danica/ and of all British concho- 

 logists except Forbes and Hanley. But since the name 

 trunculus has been appropriated by Continental writers 

 for the Mediterranean species, I have followed Searles 

 Wood in adopting that which was given by Da Costa 

 to our shell. The latter is the D. vittata of Lamarck, 

 but not his D. anatinum, which appears to be the same 

 species as that which is now called D. trunculus. The 

 principal difference between his diagnoses of the last 

 two species is that the former is described as " ob- 

 longa," and doubtfully identified with Tellina donacina 

 and with Gualtieri's figure of another species of Tellina 

 which it is impossible to make out ; while the latter is 

 designated "elongata;" and Linne, Lister, Adanson, 

 Knorr, and other heterogeneous authorities are cited. 

 M. D'Orbigny (pere) gave me in 1830 a specimen of 

 the Mediterranean shell, named " Donax a?iatina" on 

 the authority of Lamarck, with whom he had been in 

 frequent communication. Lamarck described his D. 

 vittata from British specimens which he had received 

 from Dr. Leach. Our shell is also the D. semistriata 

 of Poli, and probably the D. fabagella of Lamarck. The 

 merits of the last-named author as a natural philoso- 

 pher and the founder of the modern school of inquiry 

 into the origin of species are unquestionably great ; but 

 his analytical powers were of an inferior order. He 

 evidently did not possess what Aristotle considered the 

 highest excellence of human wisdom — the faculty of 

 discriminating things very much alike. 



