On the Nomenclature of the Foraminifera. 229 



XXV. — On the Nomenclature of the Foraminifera. 

 By W. K. Parker, M. Micr. Soc, and T. R. Jones, F.G.S. 



[Continued from p. 168.] 



Part VII. Operculina and Nummulina. 



Operculina. 



The Lenticulites complanata of Defrance (Diet. So. Nat. 1822, 

 vol. XXV. p. 453) is th^ Operculina complanata of D'Orbigny's 

 Tabl. Me'th. (1826) p. 281, no. 1 ; and Modeles, no." 80. 

 Basterot refers to this shell in his ' !Mem. Geol. sur les environs 

 de Bordeaux,' prem. partie, 18'25, p. 18. According to Defrance 

 and Basterot, it is fossil at Dax, Leognan, Anvers, Pontoise, 

 Boutonnet near Montpellier, in Italy, and common at Saucats 

 in the green sands at the Mill of Bernachon. It occurs also in 

 the Crag of SuflPolk; and numerous varieties are known (under 

 specific names) from the Eocene and other Tertiary beds of 

 England, Europe, and Asia. Two or more also are known in 

 the Cretaceous beds of France. It lives in the present seas in 

 about 10 or 20 fathoms water, abounding on some parts of the 

 Australian coast, in New Zealand, in the Philippines, and in the 

 Indian Sea, at all which places it attains a relatively large size. 

 In our northern and Arctic seas it is also of common occurrence, 

 but of very small dimensions. 



In 1781, Gronovius* figured and described a middle-sized 

 specimen, one of many obtained from the sea-sand in the inside 

 of a Trochus Telescopium from Bengal, naming it Nautilus ammo- 

 noides. In 1783, Schroeterf niet with several small specimens 

 among the roots of sponges from the Baltic, and, giving a figure 

 and description, he named the shell Nautilus Balthicus. Hence 

 there were already two names for this species previously to De- 

 france's time; and that of Gronovius {Operculina ammonoides) 

 has necessarily the right of priority. 



Nevertheless, since Operculina passes into Nummulina and 

 loses its supposed specific distinctions (as Carter and Carpenter 

 have demonstrated J), it cannot retain its separate binomial appel- 

 lation on zoological grounds, however convenient it may be to the 

 collector and the geologist to have in this case, as in others, di- 

 stinct names for the several varieties that come to hand. 



* Zoophylacium Gronovianum, exhibens Animalia &c. quae in Museo 

 suo adservavit &c. L. T. Gronovius. fol. Lugd. Batav. 1/81, p. 282. 

 no. 1220, and p. v (Tabularum Explicatio). 



t Eiideitungin dieConchylien-Kenntniss nach Linne, von J.S.Schroeter. 

 8vo, Halle, 1/83, vol. i. p. 20, pi. 1. fig. 2. Also referred to in the ' Natur- 

 forscher,' 1782, vol. xvii. p. 120. 



X See also Annals Nat. Hist. set. 3. vol. T. p. 109. 



