Pvn H,i I'UitlS

406 TELLINID.E.
to have lost sight of the fact that Linne knew little
more of exotic shells than he could glean from the
meagre accounts and inartistic figures of the authors
who had preceded him. It is also the D. trunculus of
Midler's f
Zoologia Danica/ and of all British conchologists
except Forbes and Hanley. But since the name
trunculus has been appropriated by Continental writers
for the Mediterranean species, I have followed Searles
Wood in adopting that which was given by Da Costa
to our shell. The latter is the D. vittata of Lamarck,
but not his D. anatinum, which appears to be the same
species as that which is now called D. trunculus. The
principal difference between his diagnoses
of the last
two species is that the former is described as " ob-
longa," and doubtfully identified with Tellina donacina
and with Gualtierr's figure of another species of Tellina
which it is impossible to make out ; while the latter is
designated "elongata;" and Linne, Lister, Adanson,
Knorr, and other heterogeneous authorities are cited.
M. D'Orbigny (pere) gave me in 1830 a specimen of
the Mediterranean shell, named " Donax anatina" on
the authoritv of Lamarck, with whom he had been in
frequent
communication. Lamarck described his D.
vittata from British specimens which he had received
from Dr. Leach. Our shell is also the D. semistriata
of Poli, and probably the D. fabagella of Lamarck. The
merits of the last-named author as a natural philoso-
pher and the founder of the modern school of inquiry
but
into the origin of species are unquestionably great ;
his analytical powers were of an inferior order. He
evidently did not possess
what Aristotle considered the
highest excellence of human wisdom— the faculty of
discriminating things very much alike.