298 PROCEEDINGS OP THE MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



PLEISTOCENE. 



London :— 



Admiralty Section, Westminster, A. S. K. 

 Cambridge : — 



Barrington, A. S. K., and Brit. Mus. G. 5267. 

 Essex : — 



Clacton, A. S. K. 



NOTE ON THE NOMENCLATURE AND SYSTEMATIC ARRANGE- 

 MENT OF THE CLAUSILTIDiE. 



By A. S. Kennard, F.G.S., and B. B. Woodward, F.L.S. j 



Eead 8th June, 1923. 



When reviewing the British, representatives of Clausiliidse from 

 the nomenclatorial point of view, we- were surprised to find how 

 lax as regards their nomenclature all the best-known authorities 

 have been. Boettger, Vest, Mollendorff, and now Wagner, all 

 when put to the test prove unreliable guides. Even the type of 

 the genus has been lost sight of, and needless to say this, now that 

 the genus is split up, afiects the question in regard to the nomen- 

 clature of the resulting genera. 



As a matter of fact. Children, in 1823, was the first to select a 

 type, but his choice of CI. torticollis, Oliv., the first of the species 

 cited by Lamarck in his Hist. Anim. s. Vert., is inadmissible 

 because it was not one of the species comprised in the genus when 

 founded by Draparnaud in 1805. Turton in 1831 {Manual, p. 6), 

 who comes next, gave as type the Turbo hidens of Montagu, which 

 is sjoionymous with the CL rugosa of Draparnaud, and Turton's 

 selection must, therefore, be accepted. 



When Gray in 1847 {Proc. Zool. Soc, 1847, p. 177) also took 

 " Turbo bidens " for the type of Clausilia, Drap., he evidently meant 

 Montagu's species and not Linne's, unless since he gave his Marpessa 

 as a synonym he was confusing at the time Miiller's Helix bidens = 

 CI. bidens, Drap. = Turbo laminatus, Montagu, a proceeding which 

 would have been quite characteristic. It is curious that though- 

 in both his editions of Turton's Manual Gray adopted Marpessa as 

 the subgenus for CI. bidens = laminata he never alluded to his 

 1821 paper. 



It may not be out of place here to recapitulate the history of the 

 misattribution to Pulteney, 1799, of the name nigricans. The 

 unanimity with which successive compilers of synonymy copy each 

 from his predecessor without ever referring to the original work is 

 remarkable and productive of many quite unnecessary errors. As 

 we pointed out a short time since {Proc. Malac. Soc, xiv, Sept. 1820, 

 p. 85) Strom's Turbo bidentatus {Det Trondh. Selsh. Shrift., iii, 1765, 



