1881.] MR. E. A. SMITH ON THE GENUS GOULDIA. 489 



8. On the Genus Gouldia of C. B. Adams, and on a new 

 Species of Crassatella. By Edgar A. Smith. 



[Received March 15, 1881.] 



Special attention having been called to the name Gouldia in the 

 volume of the Society's 'Proceedings' for 1879 (p. 131) by Mr. W. 

 H. Dall, in a communication entitled " On the Use of the generic 

 name Gouldia in Zoology," I beg to present to the Society a few ob- 

 servations on the Molluscan group bearing this designation. Having 

 recently had occasion to examine some of the shells which have 

 been described under that name, I find that it is untenable ; and 

 therefore the genus Gouldia of Bonaparte is left free for adoption 

 by ornithologists. 



The types of Adams's genus were two species from the "West 

 Indies, G. cerina and G. parva. Of these the former proves to be 

 a species of Circe, and the latter a small Crassatella. Tliis {parva), 

 says Carpenter (Mazatlan Cat. p. 82), "bears a general resemblance 

 to Circe minima." This, however, must be erroneous, probably a 

 lapsus calami. He states that he examined specimens of G, parva 

 in Mr. Cuming's collection ; these, however, I cannot now find ; 

 and it appears to me that it was, in all probabiHty, the G. cerina 

 which he had before him, specimens of which are preserved in the 

 Cumingian collection. The latter does " bear a general resemblance 

 to Circe minima," whilst the description of G. parva in no way 

 accords with it, but rather characterizes one of the Crassatelloid 

 species found in the West Indies, which have been assigned to 

 Gouldia. C. B. Adams's description runs thus: — "Te&tk Astarte 

 affini, sed dente laterali remota anteriore in utraque valva instrucla ; 

 pallii impressione vix vel hand sinuaia." 



These characters do not well apply to the first of his species, G. 

 cerina ; for that is very unlike an Astarte, lacking the epidermis so 

 characteristic of that group, and having coloured markings, which, 

 with one exception, are altogether absent in the genus referred to. 

 I am therefore inclined to believe that the Astartoid resemblance 

 referred to the second species, G. parva, his description being appli- 

 cable to Astarte, and the shell which I refer to it certainly not 

 unlike that genus, being compressed and strongly concentrically 

 ridged and sulcate. 



Adams's generic diagnosis (Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., 1845, vol. 

 ii. p. 9) makes no mention of the hinge-ligament. In his G. 

 cerina, however, it is semiexternal, as in Circe, whilst in his G. 

 parva and G. pacijica it is internal, as in Crassatella. This has 

 been pointed out by Carpenter in 1863, in his Supplementary 

 Report on the MoUusca of the West Coast of North America, 

 p. 544, where he observes, "It appears that Gouldia {Thetis, C. B. 

 Ad. olim, non Sowerby, nee H. and A. Ad.) is congeneric with 

 " Circe '^ minima, not with the Astartids. Prof. Adams's fresh spe- 

 cimens of his G. pacijica prove to have the crassatelloid internal 

 "Proc. Zool. Soc— 1881, No. XXXII. 32 



