INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, PHILADELPHIA. 333 



Turbo sp. Linn6, Syst. Nat., Ed. xii. p. 1237, 1767. 



BuHmus sp. Scopoli, Intr. Hist. Nat., p. 192, 1777; Poiret, Coq. fluv., p. 45, iSor. 



Nerita sp. {vivipara) MuUer, Verm. ter. et fluv. ii. p. 182, 1774. 



Cochlea sp. [vivipara) Da Costa, Brit. Conch., p. Si, pi. vi. fig. 2, 1778. 



Piiludina BruguiSre, Enc. Metli. ii. pi. 45S, 1798. 



Cyclosioiiix sp. Drap., Hist. Moll. ter. fluv., p. 34, 1805. 



Vivipare Lam., Phil. Zool., p. 320, 1809. 



Viviparus Montfort, Conch. Syst. ii. p. 246, iSio. 



Cyclostoma Cuvier, M^m. sur la Vivipare, Ann. Mus. xi. p. 172, 1811. 



Paludine Lamarck, Extr. d'un Cours Zool. du Mus., p. 117, 1812. 



Vivipara J. Sowerby, Min. Conch, i. p. 75, 1813. 



Paludina Cuvier, Regne Anim. ii. p. 421, 1817 ; Say, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. i. p. 125, 



Oct., 1817. 

 Paludina Lamarck, An. s. Vert. vi. pt. 2, p. 172, 1822. 



This genus has had extraordinary vicissitudes in its nomenclature which 

 wrell illustrate the necessity of caution in making changes in these ancient 

 names without a thorough investigation of all their history. The type has 

 been commonly known on the continent for more than two hundred years by 

 the vernacular name of " la vivipare a bandes," a name derived partly from its 

 color-markings and partly from its viviparous habit. The first technical use 

 of this appellation which I have discovered is in Martini's German translation 

 of Geoffroy's work on the land and fresh-water shells of the vicinity of Paris. 

 Geoffroy was not a binomial writer in the proper sense of the words, though 

 posterior to the introduction of the binomial nomenclature by Linne in 1758. 

 But he proposed several genera which have been universally adopted, and 

 Martini in his index has supplied binomial appellations in several cases where 

 Geoffroy had merely used, for the species under his new genera, a descriptive 

 phrase. One of these cases is Vivipara fasciata, of which Martini says in 

 the text, speaking of the group of Nerites under which five genera are 

 assembled : " All these Nerites lay eggs (ovipar(2) ; the only genus excepted, 

 which has, therefore, been named ' die lebendig gebahrende ' [vivipara), brings 

 forth living offspring which come from the mother's womb with small shells " 

 already grown. Geoffroy has as the only species under his second genus of 

 Nerites ''Cochlea vivipara fasciata," which is straightforwardly indexed by 

 Martini as Vivipara fasciata. This may be said to establish the name on a 

 firmer foundation than most of the early non-Linnean names of the transition 

 period, 1758-1799, in nomenclature. 



Good old Denys de Montfort — who knew no Latin worth mentioning, 

 and by poverty was driven to engrave (fearfully and wonderfully) the illustra- 

 tions to his Conchology with his own unaccustomed hand — fancied that all 

 that was necessary to make Latin out of a French vernacular name was to add 

 " us" to it. Hence all his genera end in a masculine manner, and it does not 

 seem to have occurred to him, any more than to some more modern writers, 

 that there was any impropriety in making the "bearer of living young" a 

 male. While a believer in the right of a name to stand without modification 



