354 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
Thus the Volutocorbis of South Africa has its prototypes in the 
Tertiaries of North America and Europe and is only distantly re- 
lated to the Volutilithes of which it has persistently been held up 
as the recent representative. 
The genus Lyria is also represented in the Eocene of the Gulf 
States, but not until the Pliocene do typical Voluta make their 
appearance, while I have so far not come across any fossil Eneta 
in the American Tertiary. Of the typical Volutilithes, represented 
by the European Eocene VY. muricina Lamarck, none are known 
from American Tertiaries, but species conchologically related to the 
V. spinosa Lamarck, for which I some time since revived Bolten’s 
name, Plejona, are well represented. We do not know any typical 
survivors of this group. 
I shall elsewhere discuss the propriety of conserving the name 
Plejona, which I revived (by the process of elimination) in the 
Nautilus for April, 1906, p. 143, for the type of Volutilithes spinosa 
Lamarck. Mr. R. Bullen Newton, seeing merely the brief announce- 
ment without discussion, has objected on grounds which it would 
seem further consideration will show to be insufficient. He there- 
fore has proposed for this group the name Volutospina. 1 quite 
agree that this would be an agreeable way to settle a disagreeable 
question, but unfortunately, unless we proceed by the method of 
elimination in this case, we shall be obliged to do worse. Bolten 
proposed a genus, much more homogeneous than most Linnean 
genera, which was properly published. Nothing authorizes us to 
reject this genus; the name must be applied to part of its original 
content and retained. 
By the method of elimination we disturb no other accepted name 
but fix Plejona on a group which happily had no acceptable name. 
By rejecting elimination, and taking the first species, our choice 
must fall on either V oluta musicalis or V. ebrea, thus ousting V oluta 
as limited by Lamarck a year later than Bolten. This is exactly 
what Link proposed to do in May, 1807, and if his view is accepted 
a long list of changes would follow which are avoided by the plan 
I proposed in the Nautilus. 
At any rate, there was nothing contrary to the rules of nomencla- 
ture in proposing to adopt one of the species of an atypical valid 
genus as its type, which is what I did on that occasion, so that even 
if I desired to change the decision, at present I have no authority 
under the rules to do so. In nomenclature, whatever else be waived, 
one must follow the rules or chaos is imminent. 
It may be added that the fourth, or last figure to the right, under 
