Cyclostoma and Pomatias. 179 



be a])])lic(l only to tlie genus wliicli contains "Turbo scalan'sj " 

 nor will he be content to write C//clostoma, Drap., because 

 there was a previous Gijclostoma^ Lamarck, though not in 

 use. 13ut he will not accept the only logical conclusion of 

 his own argument, which, if granted to be true, would necessi- 

 tate Cycloatoma superseding Scalaria. So he hunts for 

 something earlier, and finds Scala., Klein ; but then tliis is 

 ])rebinomial, so will not do, and so he ciitches at a straw, and 

 liiids iScala, lluni})hrey, ' Museum Colonnianuni,' 1797, two 

 years antedating Cyclostoma, Lamarck, and which has been 

 used by Mr. Dall. What is the history of this Scala, Hum- 

 phrey? It seems scarcely to be believed that its authority 

 rests upon the fact that a name, "anonymous and undescribed" 

 {Dull), was inserted in a sale catalogue — nothing more tlian a 

 ])re-Liiinean name aj)plied to a shell for sale ; and this is to 

 be enough to give it post-Linnean authority ! It may be 

 expected after this that frequent reference will be made ninety 

 years hence to '' Stevens's " sale catalogues, for would there 

 not be Scala, the precedent for their authoritative use *. 



Lastly, Mr. Newton objects to the last part of Brit. Assoc. 

 Eule 10, which allows the retention of a generic or specitie 

 name if no similar prior name is in use ; and he refers to the 

 American and French rules, which cannot claim to have been 

 yet accepted generally even in the countries in which they 

 originated, whereas the B. A. rules have the highest autho- 

 rity and the widest usage. That this Rule 10 is generally 

 accepted on the continent has been proved by references in this 

 very discussion, for I showed in my last notes that two of the 

 leading zoologists of the continent, G. O. Sars and Schulze, 

 observed it, and all the conchologists who write Cyclostoma, 

 Drap. — and their name is legion — do the same. Mr. Newton 

 asks whether I am aware that in my recent " Revision of 

 British Mollusca," 1890, where I " place under review some 

 seventy or eighty genera, about a dozen of them are preoccu- 

 pied names f, ^I'd whether they remain so in niy desire to 

 carry out strictly to the letter my interpretation of the latter 

 portion of Rule 10." I am always thankful to be put right 

 when 1 am wrong ; but I am not aware of any thing of the 

 kind, and think that Mr. Newton is here again under a 



* I cannot acquiesce in Mr. Dall's conclusions, but a very full state- 

 ment of the case by him will be found in Bull. Soc. Comp. Zool. vol. xviii. 

 (1889) p. 299. 



f One name, Cn/pta:vis, 1 advisedly retained, though knowing it to be 

 preoccupied and that it could not stand. I was unwilling to give a new 

 oeueric name to a species which, when better known, will probably find 

 a resting-place in an existing genus, and tlierefore for the present thought 

 it best to leave it with Jellreys's description and Jetirevs's name. 



12* 



