THE NAUTILUS. iG 
Brotocta CenTRALI-AMERICANA: Mo.uusca, by E. von Mar. 
tens. After an interval of several years, during which no parts of 
this work appeared, its publication has been resumed, we hope to 
be continued without interruption; two parts having been issued 
in November and December, 1897. ‘These treat mainly of the Cyl- 
indrellide, comprising the genera Eucalodium, Celocentrum, Holo- 
spira, Cylindrella, Macroceramus. 
The most remarkable feature of von Marten’s treatment of this 
family is not what he has to say about it, which, so far as it goes, is 
well enough, but what he leaves out. It would seem that the Berlin 
authorities are not only excluding American fruit, but have been 
excluding American malacology as well for several years past. 
Papers published in periodicals as well known as the Proceedings of 
the U.S. National Museum and of the Academy of Natural Sciences 
of Philadelphia, seem to be quite unknown in Berlin. 
Eucalodium is divided into several sections, based upon size, color 
and external form. Of these sections Resupinata, for E. speciosum, 
edwardsianum and deshayesianum, is new, and Anisospira of Strebel 
is regarded as another section. The division based upon the pres- 
ence or absence of a strong spiral plait upon the columella, and the 
dentition, published in September, 1895, is not mentioned, and the 
sectional name then proposed for E. blandianum and its allies is 
ignored, even in synonymy. 
Some fine new species of Cw/ocentrum are described, while others 
made known by Dall are omitted. 
It is in the genus Holospira, however, that eccentricity seems most 
pronounced. An American malacologist, whom we had supposed 
was not unknown in Berlin, published a new classification of 
this genus in September, 1895 (two years and three months before 
the appearance of the genus in the Biologia), in which the species 
were distributed into some six sections or subgenera according to the 
presence and arrangement or absence of folds, lamine or plaits 
within the shell. This was a great advance in the study of the 
genus, as the species are so similar externally that their determina- 
tion without such an aid as this was difficult and uncertain; to say 
nothing of the gain in knowledge of the interrelations and descent 
of the species. In the Biologia not only are these subgenera com- 
pletely ignored—denied a line in the synonymy—but even the facts 
of nature which they represent are unnoticed in the tables of specific 
characters. After this it does not seem worth while to mention such 
