THE NAUTILUS. 127 



NOTE ON THE NAMES ELACHISTA AND PLEUROTOMARIA. 



BY W. H. DALL. 



My attention has been called by Mr. Cockerell to the fact that the 

 name Elachista Dall and Simpson, in the Porto Rico Report, Mol- 

 lusca, p. 427, 1901, is preoccupied in Lepidoptera by Treitschke, 

 since 1833. For this peculiar group of Bittium, typified by B. ceri- 

 thidioide Dall, and which extends in time as far back as the Eocene 

 in both Europe and America, I would substitute the name Alabina, 

 in reference to its resemblance to Alaba, a name which, so far as I 

 am able to discover, has not hitherto been used. 



I have frequently called attention to the ill-effects of the absurd 

 European proposition that names such as Cyprinus and Cyprina 

 should not be allowed to exist in nomenclature simultaneously. 

 Very few of those who support this view have any idea of the havoc 

 in nomenclature which the rigid enforcement of such a rule would 

 produce, with no benefit, but a very serious detriment to science. 

 Finding the name Nassaria challenged on this ground, I hunted up 

 the earlier use (1806) in Dumeril's Zoologie Analytique and took the 

 occasion to make a full list of Dumeril's names, which all end in 

 anus and are all synonyms. Some appear in the text and others in 

 the Latin index only, with references to the pages where the. French 

 equivalent is to be found. Among the latter I discovered Pleuro- 

 tomarius, Dumeril's name for Pleurotoma. If the idiotic rule above- 

 mentioned was put in force, this superfluous synonym would deprive 

 us of the right to use Pleurotomaria J. Sowerby, which dates only 

 from 1821, and perhaps also Pleurotomariitm Blainville, another 

 rendering of Defrance's French name, which dates from 1825. I 

 may add that any rule admitting anonymous names, taken into con- 

 sideration with the above-mentioned one, would upset about half of 

 the best-known names in Molltiscan Zoology, including such as Oliva, 

 Cyprsea, etc. Can any one mention any good results to be obtained 

 from such a course ? 



THE ORIGINAL LOCALITY OF LIMNiEA AMPLA MIGHELS. 



BY OLOF O. NYLANDER. 



In 1842 Mr. Alexander TV. Longfellow discovered in Second 

 Eagle Lake Limncea amp/a. Prof. Edward L. Morse visited the 

 same lake in 1851 and called it Mud Lake. On the maps of Maine 

 it is generally called Second Lake, but Mud Lake is the only name 



