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86 American Seashells
which is akin to a first name such as William or Julia. The generic name
is always capitalized, e.g., Comis, Strombiis or Area, but the specific name
which comes after the genus name is not, e.g., princeps, pilsh'yi or florideijsis.
It is also customary to add the name of the person who described and
christened the species; thus the Queen Conch of southern Florida and the
West Indies is known as Strovibiis gigas Linne. If subspecies or geographical
races are recognized, the name may appear, for example, as Melojtgena corona
perspectiva Pilsbry or M. corona corona Gmelin, the latter being the typical
race. W'e have employed subgenera throughout the book as center headings.
They may also be written into the name in parentheses: Janthina (Violetta)
gJobosa Swainson. It is wrong to put a generic synonym in the middle of
the name, as Busy con {Fiilgiir) carica Gmelin.
Some authorities may put the author's name in parentheses, for example,
Modulus modulus (Linne). This means that the species was first described
under another genus, in this case, not Modulus but Trochus. Unfortunately,
as our science becomes more advanced, parentheses must be used in the ma-
jority of the species, and their usefulness becomes offset by the tax on one's
memory as to whether or not they are to be employed in the various species.
Modern workers are attempting to abandon this useless frill of nomenclature,
and in this book they are not used. Dates following the author's names
refer to the date of publication and serve the useful purpose of tracking
down the original reference. It should be noted that the "double i" ending
is no longer used in species names (not smithii, but smkhi).
Name changing. There is nothing more annoying than having a wellknown
and frequently used scientific name changed; and the field of mol-
lusks seems to be having its lion's share of tossing out of old friends for utter
strangers. There are two basic kinds of changes—zoological and nomenclarorial.
Everyone will condone the former, for it is obvious, as our knowledge
increases, that certain genera or even species will be found to be mixtures,
and this necessitates separating and applying new names. In this book, for
example, Fasciolaria gigantea is changed to Pleuroploca gigantea. The Horse
Conch, P. gigantea, does not have characters like those of the tulip shells,
and it cannot be put in the genus Fasciolaria with such species as F. tulipa
Linne and F. hunteria Perry. For the same reason, what has been called by
many workers Ostrea virginica is now Crassostrea virginica. Venus merce-
naria is now Mercenaria mercenaria.
Nomenclatorial name changing is hardest for everyone to accept. As
not infrequently happens, a species may be given several different names
inadvertently by various authors. The International Commission for Zoolog-
ical Nomenclature has set up an extensive set of rules; among these is the
rule of priority by which the earliest valid name is chosen if several names
are available. Unfortunately, the earliest name may have been overlooked