276 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. 9, NO. 9, JANUARY, I9OO. 



works were Bibliotheca orientalis, 4 vols., Romae, 1725, zxAKalendaria 

 Ecdesix Universcc, 6 vols., Romae, 1755. A Syrian Maronite, he was 

 the first of a race of scholars each bearing the learned name of Asse- 

 mani. His nephew Stephen carried on his uncle's researches, and 

 died in 1782; another nephew, Joseph Louis, continued the family 

 tradition of profound oriental scholarship ; and the last of the cele- 

 brated family of Assemani, the Abbe Simon, who was born in 1752 

 at Tripoli, and who passed away at Padua in 1821, is still regarded 

 as one of the greatest orientalists of a past generation. Now it was in 

 this same year — 182 1 — that Leach retired from the active editorship 

 of the " Zoological Miscellany," and it was in North Italy, not very 

 far from Padua, that he spent the closing years of his life. When the 

 great oriental scholar died, the newspapers and journals, British and 

 Italian alike, would doubtless take considerable notice of the decease 

 of so well known a man. Biographical details would be given, and 

 there would be many tributes to his memory and labours. What more 

 natural, then, than that Dr. Leach, with his interest in oriental lands 

 already so keen, should have utilized the name of one, the last of a 

 race of scholars whose loss was everywhere deplored, and should have 

 given it to a genus of molluscs which was then waiting tor a special 

 designation ? I think, taking the whole circumstances into account — 

 the interest that Leach had in oriental affairs, the fact that Assemani 

 died in North Italy where Leach was residing, and the near synchron- 

 ism of the dates — that we have in this the most probable derivation of 

 a word which has puzzled many. But if my conjecture be correct, 

 must the customary spelling of the genus be changed ? It is, 

 already, as Jeffreys indicated, very unstable, being spelled variously 

 Assiminea, Assimmia, Assaminea. I am, however, averse to any 

 alteration which is not strictly necessary, and therefore, although the 

 correct designation of the name should be Assemania (if the etymo- 

 logy which I suggest be the true one), I would not seek to urge that 

 this merely verbal difference should be adopted. 



In closing this enquiry I may be allowed to express my indebted- 

 ness to Mr. J. Cosmo Melvill, F.L.S., and to Mr. Edgar A. Smith, 

 F.Z.S., for their kind help in verifying some of my references. 



AUCHTERARDER, PERTHSHIRE. 



Pisidium milium in Somerset. — This species is not included in Mr. E. W. 

 Swanton's list of Somerset land and freshwater mollusca, and it may interest him 

 to know that Mr. L. E. Adams and I found it in plenty, associated with Pisidhim 

 fontinale, in a ditch at Dunster in August, 1892. We also took P. ptisillum, which 

 Mr. Swanton characterizes as a rare shell in Somerset, in ditches at Dunster and 

 Minehead. — Chas. Oldham, Alderley Edge {Read before the Society, Nov. 8, 

 1899). 



