156 TRANSACTIONS OF THE WAGNER FREE 



ribs, which continue clear across the whorl, and with low, very thin, sharp, 

 imbricated lamellae corresponding to the incremental lines covering the whole 

 shell, but most elevated and strong in front of the suture; spiral sculpture of 

 numerous rounded threads, with about equal interspaces, which on the last 

 whorl of the adult are sharper on the summits of the ribs and more distant, 

 but in the young evenly overrun the ribs and surface without becoming nodu- 

 lous or enlarged ; aperture in the young ovate, rounded behind, with a few 

 rather obscure teeth inside the outer lip, the inner lip with a smooth callus ; 

 the canal narrow, with a strong, imbricated fasciole and a well-defined umbilical 

 chink ; in the adult the suture is more and more appressed until there is fre- 

 quently a sort of narrow channel at the posterior end of the aperture ; the 

 callus on the inner lip is heavier and the umbilical pit wider and deeper, al- 

 most like that of Rapana, but less deep; the canal in such cases is strongly 

 recurved and the exterior spirals angulated at the summit. Max. length of 

 adult specimen 60.00 ; diam. 30.0 mm. 



Figure 11 shows a large, worn, broken specimen in which the surface-im- 

 bricating sculpture is wholly worn away, but I have other fragments which 

 show it very sharp in still larger specimens. The umbilicus is very large and 

 flaring in some specimens, more moderate in others; the ribs sometimes be- 

 come obsolete on the last whorl ; the spire may be more swollen or more acute ; 

 — in short, this, which is probably the largest species of the genus, went through 

 just such a series of variations as do the living species. These singular modi- 

 fications are likely to be lost sight of in the rage for making new specific 

 names which has attacked a certain school of conchologists, who appear to 

 believe that a name is an end in itself, instead of a mere handle to use in 

 assorting and systematizing the facts of Nature. 



A specific name should represent the center of inertia, in a group of indi- 

 viduals, from which variations radiate on all sides, or proceed like the concen- 

 tric circles when a stone is dropped into still water. When names are given 

 to every trivial mutation, it is impossible to account for and subordinate prop- 

 erly the mutations among themselves. Since the latter is our object, in 

 science, those who by silly multiplication of names would block the way, 

 may be justly stigmatized as unscientific nuisances, whose work it may soon 

 b;come necessary for real students to ignore. 



Coralliophila lepidota n. s. 

 Plate 9, figure 3. 

 Shell subfusiform, seven-whorled, not large, with a rasp-like surface and 

 large, imbricating ribs ; nucleus small, smooth ; spiral sculpture, first, of very 

 fine microscopic grooves over the whole surface when perfect ; second, of 

 numerous subequal or sometimes alternated rounded threads, which cover 

 the shell and are wider, but not higher, on the summits of the ribs; transverse 

 sculpture of thin, little-elevated, imbricating lamellae, less prominent and 

 regular than in C. magna, but of the same general character ; also of eight 



