Description of Some Cincinnati Fossils. 



149 



Tellinomya was not preoccupied under any rules or laws of 

 nomenclature previous to its use by Hall. 



Tellimya was a name used by Brown in 1827, but that word 

 does not sound like Tellinomya, nor can it be coined from 

 Tellina and Mya } from which Tellinomya was derived. When 

 a generic name is compounded from two other genera the 

 word can not be corrupted by dropping a syllable from either 

 one, for the radical and essential parts of the constituent mem- 

 bers must be retained, and no change made, except in the 

 variable terminations. We have not the work of Brown at 

 hand, but would suppose, from the structure of the word 

 Tellimya, that, possibly, he undertook to derive it from the 

 Greek word tello and the genus My a, and intended it should 

 signify the dawn of the genus Mya, and, if so, there was no 

 such inappropriateness in the word as to make it nugatory. 

 If, however, he intended to coin the word from Tellina and 

 Mya, and spelled it Tellimya, the name was dead when printed, 

 and beyond the lines of systematic nomenclature from that 

 moment and ever afterward. 



But the author in the Minnesota Survey says that nine- 

 teen years after Brown coined the w r ord Tellimya some one 

 spelled it in a printed catalogue Telli7iomya, wdiich was the 

 year before the first volume of the Palaeontology of New York 

 was printed and distributed. But the printed catalogue gave 

 no vitality to the word Tellinomya, nor did the author assume 

 the power to make it do so. A catalogue name is not a 

 publication under any of the rules of nomenclature, nor does 

 the correct spelling of a word in a catalogue give any strength 

 to an original bad spelling of it. Hall delivered his man- 

 uscript to the State Printer in 1846, and it is only fair to pre- 

 sume that he catalogued the name Tellinomya prior to its use 

 in a catalogue by any other person, and especially before it 

 appeared in the printed catalogue above referred to, though, 

 under the laws of nomenclature, it is idle to talk about the 

 date of a catalogue, whether it is printed or not. 



Brown may have coined his word Tellimya from a man 

 named Tell and the genus Mya and, if so, it stands by the 

 side of Agassizodits, Collettosaiirns,Millcric)iniis, Worthenopora, 

 and many other words coined in like manner. Looking at 

 the w T ords Tellimya and Tellinomya from any point of view, 



