TERTIARY FAUNA OF FLORIDA 



Order PRIONODESMACEA. 



Superfamily NUCULACEA. 

 Family NUCULID^. 



Genus NUCULA Lamarck. 



Nucula Lam., Prodr. Nouv. Class. Coq., p. 87, 1799. Type Area nucleus Linne. 

 Niiculana Link, Rostock-sammlung, p. 155, 1S07. 

 Glycymeris Da Costa, British Conch., p. 170, 1778, ex parte. 



IN 1778 Da Costa proposed for the Charna glycymeris of Belon (1553) and 

 the Area nucleus of Linne a genus under the name of Glycymeris. In his 

 System of Conchology published two years previously Da Costa had not 

 adopted the Linnean nomenclature, but in his British Conchology and later 

 in the Museum Colonnianum, which tradition says Da Costa edited from a 

 manuscript of Hwass for Humphrey, he used the binomial system. The 

 name Glycymeris had not previously been used by any binomial author, for 

 Klein, who is sometimes erroneously cited for scientific names, cannot by any 

 stretch of courtesy be truthfully called binomial. In the same work Da Costa 

 used the generic name Pectunciibis, subsequently applied by Lamarck (1799) 

 to the orbicular Arks, for the group which had already received the name of 

 Vemis from Linne. Da Costa's Glycymeris was intended to include all the 

 rounded bivalves with a Taxodont hinge. Those of the type of Chama 

 glycymeris were erected by Lamarck into a genus Pectunculiis in 1 799, leaving, 

 according to modern rules of nomenclature, for Glycymeris Da Costa only the 

 Area nucleus and its congeners. I confess I am unable to see how a con- 

 sistent application of our rules, if we accept Pectunciilus Lamarck, can avoid 

 the use of Glycymeris for the group usually called Nucula. Pectunaibis pre- 

 ceded Nueula in Lamarck's Prodrome, and consequently must first be disposed 



571 



