90 TIIK NAUTILUS. 



a question that I have often l)een asked ; in fact I have often made 

 the same inquiry myself When the Judge wanted to know of Sam. 

 Weller whethei* he spelt his name with a V or a W he replied : 

 " That depends on the taste and fancy of the speller." And I think 

 that in applying specific or varietal names, much depends on the 

 taste and fancy of the one giving them. I thiiik a definition of a 

 varietv might be, a shell which evidently belongs to a given species 

 but which jiresents certain constant minor variations from the type. 

 Sometimes these may be color, or of size, form, sculpture ; in the 

 presence or absence of a tooth, or other detail, but it should always 

 be constant to be worth anything, and even when it is, conchologists 

 do not adhere to any strict ride in naming. Among the cones and 

 olivas, coloring is often the principal distinguishing character ; while 

 with shells like Donax and many of the Xeritas and Xeritinas, it 

 counts for nothing. 



I believe that those of us who are more conservative should collect 

 and study not with a view to the formation of new species, but to cut 

 down and relegate to tlie synonymy the hundreds and perhaps thou- 

 sands of false ones which already exist. Instead of making the 

 inquiry over a puzzling form, isn't it new, it would be better to ask, 

 doesn't it connect species that are now considered separate. oNIr. 

 Tryon gloriously inaugurated the work of cutting down the list of 

 our names, and I believe that as great honor and fame awaits the 

 iconoclast in the future, as can possibly belong to the most assiduous 

 member of the new school of the present. 



ON CREPIDULA GLATJCA. 



BY JOHN FORD. 



In his recently published Catalogue of the Marine Mollusks of the 

 Southeastern coast of the United States, Dr. Dall appears to have 

 altogether ignored the existence of Crepidula glauca, Say, the figure 

 of the latter, taken from Gould's Invertebrata of ^Massachusetts, hav- 

 ing been utilized by him to represent a juvenile C. fornicata. Say. 

 The same mistake was made by my friend, the late Mr. Geo. W. 

 Tryon, Jr., in one of his early publications, but a more recent 

 examination of a large number of specimens satisfied him that the 

 species was absolutely distinct from C. fornicata or any other species 

 belonging to the genus. 



