34 
THE NATURAL SCIENCE JOURNAL. 
which it came is not given. Indeed 
Meek’s figures have more points in com¬ 
mon with Blainville’s than the latter has 
with S. planumbonum. 
We must retain th^ name Strophomena 
because it has been defined many times 
and is interwoven with the science, and 
it wrongs no one to credit it to Rafin- 
esque because no other one has ever 
claimed it. It remains then only to de¬ 
termine what is the type or what shall be 
regarded as the type. It must be Stro¬ 
phomena rugosa, Rafinesque, one of the 
group generally referred to S. rhomboi- 
dalis or it must be S. alternata. 
If these two forms are congeneric, it 
makes very little difference which shall 
be taken as the type. S. deltoideain its 
geniculation and concentric undulations 
is somewhat midway between the two 
species, and, in my opinion, no one has 
pointed out any generic character by 
which these species can be separated or 
distinguished, though recently I have 
seen them arranged in different genera. 
Fixity is one of the primary laws of 
nomenclature and it must be maintained 
to secui’e public interest in the Science. 
If one party understands one thing by a 
technical name and another understands 
a different thing or uses a different tech¬ 
nical name for it, the names become a 
burthen to the science and it would be 
just as well to abolish the binomial sys¬ 
tem and use a sentence in description, to 
point out the object intended, as authors 
did before the days of Linntcus. 
If I am correct, the attempt to change 
the use of Strophomona by taking the 
name away from the forms it has repre¬ 
sented in the text books and scientific 
publications for the past two or three 
generations, and applying it to forms 
having different generic characters which 
have been recently ascertained, is con¬ 
trary to history and science in all its 
aspects. It is an open violation of the 
fundamental laws of nomenclature and 
of course can only be an obstruction in 
the way of beginners who have not the 
advantage of an educated instructor. As 
I have said, it makes little difference 
whether S. rugosa or S. alternata is re¬ 
garded as the type, so long as both spe¬ 
cies are classed in the same genus, as 
has been done by all American authors 
until within the past three or four years. 
This modern innovation, it would seem 
to me, is the result of the examination of 
the interiors of a few valves (except 
with those who refer S. rugosa to Lep- 
taena and S. alternata to Strophomena) 
and the imaginary discovery of distin¬ 
guishing characters which I regard as of 
very little importance. Th^ interiors of 
the valves in Strophomena and also in 
Streptorhynchus vary in any given spe¬ 
cies as much as the exteriors do and no 
specific distinctions can be founded upon 
them. This is known to all collectors 
here. 
Mr. Albers brought to me a large 
number of pedicle valves of Streptor¬ 
hynchus planumbonum, which he had 
selected, showing all stages of develop¬ 
ment of a medium septum, from none at 
all, to a strong ridge dividing the muscu¬ 
lar scars and increasing in size in its 
anterior extension to an abrupt termina¬ 
tion near the margin of the shell, and 
also showing the crural ridges small and 
widely divided in some cases and in oth¬ 
ers coarse and forming a complete ring 
anterior to the muscular scars, beside 
numerous other variations that entirely 
destroy any supposed specific importance 
