Al Histoical MOLLUSK

,Al HISTOICAl MOLLUSK PIART 7. CERTAIN SPECIES OF THE GENUS TURBO OF THE CLASS GASTROPODA HENRY DODGE BULLETIN OF THE ,.AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY VOLUME 118 ARTICLE 5 NEWV YORK: 1959 A HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MOLLUSKS OF LINNAEUS A HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE MOLLUSKS OF LINNAEUS 0 PART 7. CERTAIN SPECIES OF THE GENUS TURBO OF THE CLASS GASTROPODA HENRY DODGE BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY VOLUME 118: ARTICLE 5 NEW YORK: 1959 BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Volume 118, article 5, pages 207-258 Issued October 5, 1959 Price: $1.00 a copy COLLATERAL NOTES THE AUTHOR REGRETS that he is compelled to (1767, p. 1193, no. 426),1 in which the alleged conclude this series of papers on the Linnaean poisonous character of the animal is noted: mollusks with the present paper, which cov- "Instrumento venenato tangentum et carnes ers approximately one-third of the species edentum laedit. R." This may be roughly contained in the genus Turbo Linn6. Because translated as: "It injures anyone who touches of the deterioration of my eyesight, it has be- it and eats its flesh." It is impossible for a come impossible to carry out the research classicist to translate the sentence accurately. necessary to monograph the remaining Lin- An equally serious stumbling block to an naean genera. In bringing my work to this un- intelligible translation is Linnaeus' com- expected conclusion, I must express my grate- pressed and "telegraphic" style and his con- ful thanks to all those whose advice and en- fusing punctuation. The omission of preposi- couragement have been of such assistance to tions and connectives and the apparent mis- me, and to all those who have been good placement of commas and other marks of enough to say that my efforts have been of punctuation often make it impossible to some help in their understanding of Lin- parse his sentences or even to determine his naeus' shells. exact meaning. In this connection it should 1. Frequent references have been made in again be noted (see Dodge, 1955, pp. 7-9) this series of papers to the difficulties en- that his subdescriptions are less unwieldy in countered in translating Linnaeus' descrip- this respect than his so-called main descriptions of mollusks and in endeavoring to make tions, and, for this writer, this fact adds great his language apply to all of the features of the weight to the theory that the main descrip- species that we must assume, from other evi- tions may have been designed merely as a long dence, that he had before him when he wrote. polynomial specific name and that the name By "other evidence" is meant the existence of in the page margin, whether adjectival or a an unquestioned or a "probable" holotype in noun, was a mere descriptive guidepost. his collection now in London or his citation of Two further frequently recurring examples a synonymy or locality conforming to the of confusing phraseology, among the many in species now accepted as the representative of his descriptions, may be noted. The first is the the Linnaean name. The citation of such a misuse of the words "postice" and "antice" synonymy or locality is, of course, somewhat and their derivatives. Linnaeus was almost less weighty evidence for identification than completely ignorant of the anatomy of the the presence of a holotype in the collection. animal and its orientation within the shell It seems to the writer that it would be useful and, in the majority of cases, reversed the to refer to some of these difficulties of transla- true application of the terms. Secondly, the tion in order that he may not be accused of phrase "anfractus continguis" which he used being over-critical of the Linnaean diagnoses. for many of the gastropods is confusing and The imperfections of the descriptions stem indeed unnecessary, as the phrase might be from several causes. First, Linnaeus was not applied to any gastropod shell, with the possi- an accomplished Latinist, but the most im- ble exception of those few species in which the portant cause is the fact that he, in common whorls are partially "unwound" as in the with the other scientists of the eighteenth species of several of the genera of land shells, century, did not consistently employ the no members of which are included in the classical form of Latin in his spelling, his "Systema naturae." The use of the phrase is vocabulary, or in his sometimes tortured locu- particularly equivocal in the case of four tions. His Latin was a later outgrowth of the species of the genus Turbo (clathrus, ambiguus, medieval Latin of the Schoolmen and con- crenatus, and uva), as the whorls of these tains many cases of curious syntax and peculiar grammatical construction which can be 1 Owing to the peculiar arrangement of the diagnoses of V. episcopalis and V. papalis in the twelfth edition described only as barbarous Latin. Instances of the "Systema" (see Dodge, 1955, p. 121), it is difficult might be mutliplied. As a single example, I to say whether this subdescription applies to both quote the subdescription under Voluta mitra species or to papalis alone. 211 212 BULLETIN AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY VOL. 118 species are no more or no less contiguous than either or both of these are missing, or the those of Linnaeus' other Turbo species, in synonymy is grossly discordant or entirely none of which is the expression used. The use incorrect, we may suggest only a tentative of this phrase for the four species mentioned identification or treat the species as a species and the substitution of "anfractibus dis- dubia. tantibus" for T. scalaris, the species next be- Finally, I should refer to a stumbling block fore clathrus in the "Systema," are completely that was in no sense the fault of Linnaeus. meaningless, as the only distinction in this The printing of both the tenth and twelfth respect between the two species is that editions of the "Systema" is often less clear scalaris is.somewhat more turreted and "step- than in many of the other pre-Linnaean and like." contemporary works. Individual letters are Another weakness of the descriptions which often blurred, incomplete, or even missing, has undoubtedly delayed or hampered the and in frequent instances commas cannot be identification of species is the fact that Lin- distinguished from semicolons or periods. naeus sometimes described the size of the This latter defect makes it difficult to sepa- minute species by such words as "minutus," rate the several phrases of a description, and "magnitudine seminis Hordei," "magnitudine two different readings might therefore be sug- pisi," and similar comparisons, or by the use gested. of a similarly descriptive specific name such 2. In Part 5 of this series of papers (Dodge, as Ostrea minuta and Solen minutus, whereas 1957, p. 123) the writer noted that a form of in the cases of many other equally minute Murex rubecula Linn6 had been several times shells he gave no indication of size, as in the reported from Florida, Yucatan, and the descriptions of Turbo auriscalpium and West Indies. This form was first listed by Trochus perversus. For the largest shells the M6rch (1877, p. 29) as "Triton rubecula L. size is almost never stated in the description occidentale" from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. and, and in only two cases, Strombus gigas I referred to the fact that this form had been and Chama gigas, is the size suggested by the treated by some writers as a good subspecies specific name. A most helpful addition to of rubecukl or even as a good species. Since the Linnaeus' descriptions would have been the publication of my paper, I have received from adoption of a consistent policy of giving some Dr. William H. Clench (personal communi- indication of size for the very large or very cation, November, 1957) a suggestion which small species, whether by specific name, by not only merits consideration but seems to be measurement, or by comparison with another unquestionably correct. shell or other object. Dr. Clench argues that in using the Latin While the above.examples of Linnaeus' de- word "occidentale" Morch did not intend fective descriptions and his bad Latin are se- thereby to name a subspecies but merely to lected at random, they will serve to underline locate the western Atlantic form geogrjaphi- the general statement that the problem of cally. In other words, Morch's position may accurate translation and the difficulty of well have been that the same species in two tying many of his names to known species are different forms was found in the two faunal serious. regions, the typical rubecula being an Indo- I have heretofore taken the position, to Pacific shell. M6rch was a priest and there- which I still adhere, that a clear and un- fore accustomed to use Latin, and I agree that equivocal description is, with the exception of the use of the Latin word "occidentale" in a properly documented holotype in Linnaeus' this connection does not necessarily have any collection, the most cogent evidence for nomenclatural significance. This theory is the identification of a species, as I consider strengthened by the manner in which he listed that it has far more weight than the great the name, with the "L." for Linnaeus preced- majority of his synonymies and localities. ing the descriptive word "occidentale," and Many of the descriptions, however, are most his failure to attribute the "subspecific" name unclear, and in these cases, and in the absence to himself by the use of his own name or of of a holotype, we are forced to rely on the "nobis." The above does not, of course, elimi- cited figures and the locality.

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