1881.] MR. E. A. SMITH ON THE GENUS CHILINA. 841 



compelled to say that all these seven figures are very badly drawn 

 and wretchedly coloured, and, in fact, are very unlike the speci- 

 mens they are supposed to delineate. This will be readily believed 

 by any one who will compare the figures in the ' Coiichologia Iconica,' 

 which are mere copies, with the originals, and see the rough manner 

 in which they have been executed. 



I am unfortunate in having to follow Mr. Sowerby's work ; for it 

 always provokes censorial criticism, which is very distasteful to me ; 

 but having under my immediate charge the collections which form 

 the material upon which most of his monographs are founded, I feel 

 it a duty to point out and correct such errors as I meet with, in 

 order that it may be known that these do not exist in the Museum. 

 The descriptive portion of this monograph is very defective, espe- 

 cially with regard to references. Species 1, Cfluviatilis, is attri- 

 buted to Gray as if a manuscript name in the Museum, whereas it 

 was described by Maton in the ' Linnean Transactions' of 1809. 



Species 2, C.Jluminea, is likewise assigned to Gray, who, although 

 the first to place the species in the section Chilina, was not the 

 author, it having been originally named by Maton at the same time 

 he described C. fluviatilis, of which it is considered but a variety 

 by d'Orbigny and myself. 



Species 4, C. dombeyana, is said to be of Sowerby instead of 

 Bruguiere. 



Species 10, C. puelcha (wrongly numbered 11), is quoted as of 

 d'Orbigny's manuscripts, whereas it has been fully described and 

 figured by that author in the 'Voyage dans I'Amerique meridionale ;' 

 and the same observations apply to C. tehuelcha. 



Species 13 (14 in the work), G. elegans, is stated to be a manu- 

 script name of Fairfield in the British Museum. This absurdity 

 shows Mr. Sowerby's complete ignorance of Frauenfeld's (the true 

 author of the species) paper on this genus, published in the ' Verhand- 

 lungen der zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien' for 1866. 



Species 1.5 (erroneously numbered 16), C. fasciata, is quoted as 

 of Gould, followed by a — ?, indicative of JNIr. Sowerby's doubt 

 whether any description had ever been published. It was described 

 in 1847 as Domhey a fasciata by Gould in the ' Proceedings of the 

 Boston Society of Natural History,' and subsequently figured in the 

 Atlas of Wilkes's Exploring Expedition. 



Finally, species 17 (wrongly lettered 18), C.parchappii, is referred 

 to " Orbigny, Synopsis." This is extremely vague, being but the 

 initial word of d'Orbigny's paper in the ' Magasin de Zoologie ' for 

 1835, entitled "Synopsis terrestrium et fluviatilium Molluscorum in 

 suo per American! meridionalem itinere ab A. d'Orbigny collec- 

 torum." 



The localities given in the 'Conchologia Iconica' are quite as mis- 

 leading and unsatisfactory as the figures. Cfluviatilis, from the 

 Rio de la Plata according to Maton and d'Orbigny, is said to be 

 Chilian by Sowerby. C. fluminea, which is but a variety, and de- 

 scribed by Maton from the same river, has the comprehensive habitat 

 " S. America " attributed to it. Several others, viz. C. major, C. 



