MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS STROPIIIA. 
195 
a different species. On page 208 of this work we find Pfeiffer’s descrip- 
tion as -given in his Monograph copied in full. 
Again in Systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet von Martini mid 
Chemintz by H. C. Kuester, Nuernberga, 1852, Plate I, Figs. 1 & 2 we 
find the pointed form of S. uva, mentioned on page 175 of this work, giv- 
en as mumia, while on the same plate unmistakable figures of typical 
mumia are labeled as chrysalis. Then on Plate XV is given another fig- 
ure of what is considered also as mumia, but which looks quite like my 
S. alba. On page 10 we also find an exact copy of Pfeiffer’s description. 
In the comparatively recent Conchologia Iconica or the Illustrations 
of the Shells of Molluscous animals, by Lovell. Augustus Reeve, London, 
1878, on Plate I, 3a, we find for the first time the shell that I have also 
considered mumia figured, but 3b on the same plate represents quite a 
different shell, probably S. infanda or an allied species. 
In the face of these various opinions regarding the status of a giv- 
en species, it becomes somewhat difficult to decide as to what course to % 
pursue. At first I was inclined to take the earliest recognizable figure 
and call the species that it represented mumia, but as shown, this is 
Crouch’s figure of S. cinerea, a shell so widely different from that which 
Bruguiere had in hand when he wrote his description, and which I do 
not remember to have seen in any collection labeled as mumia, that I 
have decided not to adopt such a rule. In fact I do not see as any fixed 
rule can be made in regard to establishing the status of the older de- 
scribed species of Strophi a where no recognizable figure accompanies 
the description. In this case I have followed what may be called uni- 
versal usage, that is I have taken a species of shell which embraces all 
of the characters given in the original description, and which I have 
found in most collections labeled as mumia, and have considered it as 
the type of mumia. and I can see no good reason why conchologists 
should not uphold me in this decision. 
I have access to most, if not all, of the literature on Strophia, while 
I have also seen some of the best collections, and shall use every avail- 
able means to unravel the tangle in which many species of this genus 
are now involved, but it will be at once seen by any one who attempts to 
identify species from the short, too often obscure, Latin descriptions 
which are unaccompanied by good figures, that it is exceedingly difficult 
to determine what species the author of such descriptions had in hand 
when he wrote them. One has only to glance at the figures ofFerussac 
and Kuester cited in the foregoing article to see that both have not only 
figured shells quite different from mumia, but that they have each given 
different species from one another, and to crown all, both figure two or 
