292 BULLETIN OF THE 
elsewhere. This would seem to be nearest to V. granulata Seguenza, in my 
opinion unwisely combined by several authors with V. trapezoidea. V. granu- 
lata is as yet but imperfectly known, but seems to have only about half as 
many ribs as the present species. 
Famity CUSPIDARIIDZ Datt. 
Genus CUSPIDARIA Narpo. 
Cuspidaria Nardo, Revue Zoologique, Jan. 1840, p. 30. (In report of the meeting 
of the Congres Scientifique at Pisa, paper read Oct. 11, 1839.) Type Tellina 
cuspidata Olivi. 
Neera Gray, in Griffith’s Cuvier, legend to plate xxii. fig. 5 (dated 18388, whole 
volume issued in 1834. Type N. chinensis Gray, in.Index, p. 598) ; Synops. 
Brit. Museum, 1840, fide Gray in P. Z. S., 1847. 
Not Neewra Robineau-Desvoidy, Essai sur les Myodaires, 1880. 
Valves with one or more teeth. 
The name Neera being preoccupied in entomology, the next name, Cuspt- 
daria, must necessarily be adopted. The longer an untenable name is retained, 
the more inconvenience results to science when it is, as it always will be, 
eventually overthrown. Gray’s name at any rate has a very slender claim to 
priority, as the genus is not mentioned in the text or described anywhere, the 
generic name is misspelled in the index of plates to Griffith’s edition of Cuvier, 
and we are left to conjecture who is its author. Gray himself, in Agassiz’s 
Nomenclator, only claimed it from the Synopsis, which I have not been able to 
examine, and which was quite likely subsequent to the publication of Nardo’s 
diagnosis in the January number of the Revue. 
The group has been reviewed by Arthur Adams, who has proposed several 
generic or subgeneric names and eliminated some incongruous species. Dr. 
Jeffreys has also made a division into sections based on the sculpture of the 
shell. Lastly, Mr. Edgar A. Smith has most carefully investigated the charac- 
ters of a large number of species, especially with regard to the hinge, arranged 
them in lettered sections pending further study, and tabulated the results. To 
this Iam much indebted for help. It will not be necessary for our purposes 
to review the entire group, but merely those sections of it which contain 
species represented in the Blake collection, or which are in some way affected 
by this investigation. 
The new subdivisions here instituted appear as proposed by Dall and Smith; 
a course taken with Mr. Smith’s permission, and which I have felt to be due 
to him, owing to the assistance I have derived from his valuable observations 
on this group. 
The shells of Cuspidaria possess an internal ligament, received in each valve 
in a more or less differentiated groove or fossette, which may project from the 
