TIIK NAUTILUS. 45 



NOTE ON PUPA MUSCORUM LINNE. 



BY H. A. PILSBKY. 



There has been considerable discussion regarding the proper name 

 of this species, some authors preferring the name " margiiKita Drap." 

 In all disputed questions regarding Linnean names, we may turn 

 with confidence to Hanley's book " The Shells of Linnteus." Han- 

 ley bestowed a vast amount of study on the actual types of Linnaeus' 

 own collection. He says of this species : 



" Turbo Muscorum. This shell (pi. IV, fig. 6) still remain? in the 

 collection, is enclosed in a paper inscribed in the hand of Linnreus, 

 and is the sole species in the entire cabinet which at all agrees Avith 

 the diagnosis. It is a curious edentulus variety of the Pupa mar- 

 ginata of Draparnaud, to which species it had been assigned by Nils- 

 son, in his valuable treatise upon the land and fresh-water shells of 

 Sweden, a work especially illustrative of the Helices and Turbines 

 of the ' Fauna Suecica.' From a sentence in the last mentioned 

 work, ' aperture ovate-acuminata, mucrone obruso' we are led to 

 imagine that our author was aware of the frequent presence of a 

 denticle in the mouth of the shell, although in the ' Systema' he had 

 termed it edentulous. None of the Linnean examples, however, are 

 provided Avith a tooth ; yet in England, where this Pupa is most 

 abundant, it is rarely that we obtain an example which is not thus 

 furnished." 



Hanley figures the type shell of Linnteus ; and we have, it seems, 

 little excuse fur rejecting the name muscorum in favor of the later 

 marginata. The following tabulation of the varieties of this species 

 I take from a MSS. of T. D. A. Cockerell : 



" In the number of teeth or lamellae in the aperture of the shell, 

 this si:)ecies presents a beautifully graduated series from none at all 

 to three, as folloAvs : 



a. edentula Moq-Taud. No teeth. Colorado, Massachusetts, 



Europe. 



b. unidentata Stabile. One tooth on parietal wall. 



c. bigranata Rossm.=sferr/ v. Yoith. Two teeth. This form 



is figured by Binney, Man. Amer. Laud Shells, p. 78, 

 fig. 40. 



d. blaiidi Morse. Three teeth, one being on columella. 



" Bigranata and blandi are often considered as species apart from 

 marginata, but I think on wholly insufficient grounds." 



