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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GENERA 



CYPRMA AND TRIVIA. 



By Dr. Francis A. Schildee. 



(Communicated and edited by H. 0. N, Shaw, F.Z.S.) 



Read mh May, 1922. 



I. Notes on the Nomenclature of some Species. 



In former years authors did not always strictly follow the rules of 



nomenclature and the laws of priority, which has caused recent 



workers much trouble and confusion. 



Linnaeus (1758, Syst. Nat.. 10th ed.) is the beginning of the 

 binomial system. 



Lamarck (1810, Ann. du Mus., xvi, p. 92), to quote only one case, 

 called a species C. rufa (sp. nov.), and added C. pyrum, Grmel. (1790), 

 as a synonym. 



Gray (1824—28, Zool. Journ., i, iii, and iv) gave the name Cyprcea 

 diluviana to a " new " species, though he knew that its var. minor 

 was identical with C. fabagina, Lam. (ISIO), and he unhesitatingly 

 used G. cervina, Lam. (1810), and physis, Broc. (1814), as specific 

 names, and C. cervus, Linn. (1771), and pyrula. Lam. (1810), 

 as synonyms ; but the same author (1824, op. cit., i, p. 380) changed 

 the name Cyprcea pulchella given by himself to a new species (1824, 

 op. cit., i, p. 143) into C. pulchra, finding the former word pre- 

 occupied by Swainson (1823) for another species, and he recognized 

 (1828, op. cit., iv, p. 66, etc.) that C. princeps, gihhosa (both are 

 called by him sp. nov.), and melanostoma, Sow., must be named 

 C. valentia, Perry, leporina, Lam., and camelopardalis, Perry, which 

 are prior names, but little known at that time. 



Gray knew that the name Cyprcea similis had been used by 

 Gmelin (1790) for a species considered by him (1828, op. cit., iv, 

 p. 85) as a synonym of C. erosa, Linn. ; but three years later (1831, 

 Zool. Miscel., p. 36), he called another species Cyprcea similis, and 

 this name was accepted by all following writers till 1909 ! 



It must also be borne in mind that conchologists occupied only 

 with the study of recent shells did not trouble about specific names 

 given by palaeontologists, and vice versa. 



Many authors did not examine the original descriptions, but 

 copied errors from the previous writers, and thus the word 

 californica, erroneously printed in Sowerby's " Gonchological 

 Illustrations " (1832) instead of calif orniana, Gray (1827, op. cit., 

 iii, p. 365), was adopted by all writers (except Carpenter in 1872) 

 to Hidalgo (1906). All authors since Dillwyn (1817) were of opinion 

 that Cyprcea cruenia, Gmel., which evidently belongs to a variety 

 of C. errones, Linn., is the same species as variolaria, Lam., which 

 opinion has been corrected by Martens (1879), Weinkauff (1881), 

 and then again by Hidalgo (1906), for Roberts (1885) had renewed 

 the false Synonymy. 



