252 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 



NOTES ON THE SPECIES OF THE GENUS SCUTUS. 

 By EDGAR A. SMITH, F.Z.S. 



Much confusion exists respecting the nomenclature of the 

 few species contained in this genus and it will be my endeavor 

 in the present p.iper to rectify it as completely as possible. In 

 this I am considerably aided in having in the Museum the actual 

 specimens upon wliich Blainville wrote his treatise in the 'Bulletin 

 des Sciences de la Societe [;hilomatique,' and also those mono- 

 graphed by A. Adams in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society,' and figured by Sowerby in the 'Thesaurus Conchyliorum' 

 and ' Concholcgia Iconica.' Besides these I have examined a 

 good series of animals preserved in spirits. 



The mistakes respecting the names of the species commenced 

 with Montfort, who unnecessarily altered Patella ambigiia of 

 Chenmitz to Scufiis antipodes. Probably the fact of i)!acing the 

 species in a new genus was to him sufficient reason for renaming it. 



Blainville next adds to the list of errors by referiing a 

 Patella elongata to Chemnitz. I presume he had in his mind 

 that author's P. aaiblgi/a, which however according to my judg- 

 ment is a distinct species from that described by Blainville, but 

 is the same as that named P. brevicuhts by the latter author 

 in the above-named paper. The name elongata had moreover 

 been already employed for a fossil species by Lamarck, who in 

 his 'Animaux sans Vertebres,' 1822, changed Blainville's name 

 [elongatus) to aiistra/is. This however Avas quite unnecessary, as 

 Donovan in 'Rees' Encyclopedia,' 1820, had already well figured 

 this species under the name of Patella anatina. 



Gray, perceiving that Sowerby in his genera figured a shell 

 under the name of Emargiiuda b?-tvicuh/s, which indeed was not 

 the true species described by Blainville under that name, gives to 



J.C, ii., August, 1879 



