30 
THE NATUBAL SCIENCE JOUBNAL. 
original figures. In 1857, the figures and 
a description appeared in the Diction- 
naire des Sciences Naturelles, and Prof. 
Hall says : 
“We have here a good description of 
this American species accompanied by 
intelligible figures, and although the 
name has never been current among 
naturalists, in this country, there seems 
sufficient reason to believe that it is the 
same species which was subsequently de¬ 
scribed as Leptaena planumbona, a com¬ 
mon fossil in the upper horizon of the 
Hudson River Group in the Ohio Valley.” 
Rafinesque never defined or illustrated 
the species. 
Prof. Meek, in 1873, reviewed this 
history of Strophomena, in Ohio Palaeon¬ 
tology, Vol. 1, p. 73, and says that Prof. 
Hall saw in Rafinesque’s collection, pur¬ 
chased after his death, by Dr. Poulson, a 
specimen of the common species rhomhoi- 
dalis accompanied by a label, on which 
was written, in Rafinesque’s well-known 
handwriting, the Strophomena rugosa‘. 
Meek thought that rhomboidalis, under 
the circumstances, should be regarded as 
the type of Strophomena, but that Blain- 
ville did not have such a form before 
him; on the contrary it was one of those 
resupinate forms, “Apparently undis- 
tinguishable from the common western 
species, S. planumbona, to which species 
it almost certainly belongs.” 
Where is the authority for saying that 
Blainville had before him S. planumbona? 
And if he did, and the genus was estab¬ 
lished, the species was also, and planum¬ 
bona becomes a synonym for rugosa; it 
must be suppressed and cannot be made 
the type of Strophomena, in any event. 
The name rugosa would stand because it 
was established if Strophomena was. 
I have handled thousands of specimens 
of Streptorhynchus planumbonum, which 
are so abundant, at Richmond, Indiana, 
that a man may collect a thousand or 
more in a day, and there is nothing in 
the description of Blainville or in the re¬ 
produced figures (I have not Blainville’s 
work before me) that would suggest that 
species to me. I have laid specimens by 
the side of the figures and submitted 
them to artists, and they have been un¬ 
able to understand how any one would 
have made such illustrations to represent 
such forms. 
The figures agree, in all respects, ex¬ 
cept in the greater width of the deltidium 
or delthyrium, with the form known here 
as Orthis insculpta. I do not know that 
the type O. insculpta, from the Trenton 
Group of New York, is specifically iden¬ 
tical with the O. insculpta from the 
superior part of our Hudson River Group, 
but they have always been so regarded. 
I have laid specimens of Orthis in¬ 
sculpta by the side of the reproduced fig¬ 
ures and submitted them to artists, who 
think they are probably the same. 
I am reasonably confident that de 
Blainville’s artist had before him when 
he drew those illustrations a specimen of 
our Orthis insculpta, which had a con¬ 
cave pedicle valve. It is sometimes con¬ 
cave, sometimes nearly flat, and often 
convex. Orthis insculpta has a rugose 
shell, the plications are the size of those 
shown in the illustrations and the general 
form of the shell agrees with the illustra¬ 
tions. Streptorhynchus planumbonum is 
not rugose, it never has such plications, 
and it never assumes the general form of 
the illustrations. 
I am not aware that any other one has 
identified Strophomena rogusa of Blain- 
