“Discriminating in 1819 between the species his predecessors had confused, Lamarck unlawfully used the name gigas for the largest form, while for the Linnean gigas he proposed squamosa. Attentive to the remarks of Hanley, Hidalgo in 1903, renamed the biggest species T. lamarcki. But in 1811, Perry had already used the name Chama gigantea for ‘the largest shell at present known.’ As the young of the giant has not yet been traced to the adult, it is still possible that squamosa is a juvenile deeper-water form of the large intertidal and abraded gigantea.
“The heaviest known are a pair weighing 550 lbs., which Cuvier and Lamarck relate were presented by the Venetian Republic to Francis I. These still exist, their edges bound with brass, as holy-water basins in the cathedral of St. Sulpice, in Paris.
“The photographs of Saville Kent show the giant clams in their natural position on the Great Barrier Reef, where they occur free and exposed at low tide, standing on their umbones, and showing their brightly colored mantle and so-called eyes as they gape.”
There are many other interesting notes bearing on nomenclature, and the animals of Australian species. Six new species are described and twenty-nine species figured.—C. W. J.
An Annotated List of Shells from Northern Michigan. By Mina L. Winslow (Occasional papers, Mus. Zool., Univ. Mich., No. 42, July 1, 1917) a list of sixty-five species from Schoolcraft, Alger and Chippewa counties, also a list from Isle Royale.
NOTES.
The Oldroyd Collection.—Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Oldroyd have given their collection of shells to the Leland Stanford Jr. University, and are now permanently employed in the Museum, Mrs. Oldroyd being the curator. The collection has been placed in the Department of Geology and Mining. The Stanford alumni purchased the collection and library of the late Henry Hemphill, which, with the Law collection and several others, forms an unusually fine working series. Mr. and Mrs. Oldroyd have spent about eight weeks at Friday Harbor, Puget Sound and British Columbia making large collections for the Stanford University, California Academy of Science and University of California.
North Carolina Land Shells.—The following species of land shells were picked from leaf-mold collected at Spruce Pine, Mitchell Co., North Carolina, by Samuel G. Gordon while on a mineralogical excursion. The specimens are in the collection of the Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., Gastrocopta contracta Say, G. pentodon Say, Circinaria concava Say, Polita indentata Say, Taxeodonta lamellidens Pils., Gastrodonta elliotti Redf., G. guldaris Say, Euconulus sterkii Dall., Punctum pygmæum Drap., Carychium exile Lea.—E. G. Vanatta.