MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 303 



This edilion is also extremely rare. Its contents (excepting tlje prefatory re- 

 marks) are the same in both editions, and have a more scientilic appearance 

 than those ot the catalogue of Humphrey, as characters corresponding to the 

 divisions adopted, are mentioned in a number of places, though there arc no 

 diagnoses, properly speaking, or special types selected. The references for 

 synonyms of the author's species are to page, plate, and figure, in many cases, 

 instead of bare names, as in the Museum Calonnianum. The divisions are 

 often rational and satisfactory, though frequently much the reverse if judged 

 by modern standards. The author seems to have had no hesitation in changing 

 names which he did not like, even when his substitute was in our sense an 

 absolute synonym. In regard to the present genus his course was retrograde 

 compared with Humphrey, for he makes Scala (Humphrey) merely the first 

 section of his genus Epitonium, which contained Scalaria (Lam., 1801), Twri- 

 tella (Lam.), and Terebra (Lam.), The first species is Turbo scalaris L, 



By the strict construction of the rules of nomenclature, none of the names 

 yet mentioned should be adopted, for they all fail to meet the requirements of 

 a binominal appellation and a diagnosis or a figure. 



The epoch-making work for malacology, after Linne, is without doubt the 

 ** Prodrome d'une nouvelle Classification des Coquilles" of Lamarck (1799), in 

 which a large number of genera were proposed, appropriately characterized, 

 and a single species in each case mentioned as an example or type. It would 

 seem unquestionable that, for genera first proposed in it, the name should 

 follow the fortune of the particular type mentioned. On page 68 the author 

 states that he has adopted the names cydostomn and pleurotoma, composed by 

 citizen Richard, for two of his genera to which he had intended to give other 

 names. This statement, which had reference merely to the formation of the 

 words, and not of the genera they were intended to denominate, has been mis- 

 understood to indicate Richard as the author of the two genera mentioned. 

 On page 74 the genus Cyclostoma* is proposed, and placed between Monndonta 

 and Turritella. This genus was adopted the following year by Cuvier (Anat. 

 Comp.), and by Bosc in his " Histoire Naturelle des Coquilles," published in 

 1802.f Bosc remarks: "One of the shells which forms this genus is very 

 celebrated under the name of scalata, on account of its rarity and high price. 

 Naturalists have differed much on the place in the conchological order which 

 it should have (on account of the absence of a columella). . . . Lamarck at last 

 has just made a particular genus of it, into which the question of the presence 



26. April d. J., Morgans um 10 Uhr | offentlich verkauft werden sollen ( durch den 

 Makler | Jolis. Noodt. | Huxter No. 68 | Cat. XXXIII. | mit vier auf stein gezeich- 

 neten Flatten seltenerConchylien ( Hamburgisclien Steindrucks. | Hamburg 1819. | 

 Gedruckt bei Conrad Miiller, Bohnenstrasse No. 151. | Svo, 4 I. unp., 156 pp., 4 

 plates. Preface dated January, 1819. 



* " 32. Coquille de diverse forme, I'ouverture ronde ou presque ronde : les deux 

 bords reunis eirculairement. Turbo scalaris Lin. Le scalata." 



t Vol. IV. p. 84, 1802. Another identical edition (from unsold sheets?) with a 

 new title page appeared in 1830. 



