289 



THE 



JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 



Vol. II. APRIL, 1906. No. 10. 



EARLY HISTORY OF THE GENERIC NAME FUSUS. 



By WILLIAM HEALEY DALL. 



(Read before the Society, December 13th, 1905). 



The name Fusus in conchology, though doubtless long in use collo- 

 quially for spindle-shaped shells, appears to have been first introduced 

 into literature and used systematically by Rumphius, in 1705, in his 

 " Amboinische Rariteit Kammer," where the name appears as a sub- 

 division of Bucciniivi, to which are referred two species from Amboyna, 

 identified by von Martens as Fusus forceps Perry and F. nobilis Reeve, 

 represented on Rumphius' plate 29, figs. F. and G. 



Klein, in 1753, used the name for a heterogeneous assembly, a 

 subdivision of his class o{ " Cochlis rostrata," es.c\\xd\ug .Rostel/aria 

 and Megalatractus, and including the species mentioned by Rumphius 

 together with species of Pleurotofna, Latirus, Fasdolaria, Melongena, 

 Tritonidea, and Pusionella, as well as a number of species of 

 Lamarckian Fusus. 



In 1766 P. L. S. MLiller published an edition of Knorr's Delicio'. 

 Natune Selectee, in two volumes, folio, with text in parallel columns, 

 of German and French, 'i'he text, as in the origmal edition of 1754, 

 is frankly polynomial, and the system of arrangement resembles tliat 

 of Argenville (p. 34), and is followed by an explanation of the plates, 

 of which only page 129 is devoted to the shells, for which are cited 

 chiefly the appellations given by Rumphius. Many of these, it will 

 be remembered, are composed of two words. But the mere citation 

 of the accidentally binomial name of a prelinnean author, is something 

 very different from incorporating it into the Linnean nomenclature. 

 Hence the occurrence of Rumphius' names composed of one or two 

 Latin words in the explanation of the plates of a book like this of 



