Index to the Species of Mollusca Introduced from 1850 to 1870

Index to the Species of Mollusca
Introduced from 1850 to 1870
From the days of Linnaeus to modern times, the
people involved in the study of natural history published
their discoveries, observations and opinions,
resulting in an incredible amount of literature. Literally
thousands of new names of families, genera and
species were introduced, making it a hopeless task to
know all that appeared in print. The obvious answer
was a cumulative index and the first volume of the
Zoological Record was published in 1865, indexing
the literature as it was currently distributed, and continues
to the present. In 1890, Charles D. Sherborn,
supported by the British Museum, commenced work
on a tremendous project whose object was "to provide
zoologists with a complete list of all the generic and
specific names that have been applied by authors to
animals since January the first, 1758" (Sherborn,
1902,1:iii) each with a bibliographic reference. Thirtyone
years later he completed the compilation, terminating
the period at 1850, which resulted in the invaluable
Index Animalium. There were now two major
indices to the vast amount of literature on the Animal
Kingdom: Index Animalium (1758-1850) and the Zoological
Record (1864 to date). Sheffield A. Neave
subsequently published the Nomenclator Zoologicus
(1939-1965) which listed the generic names of the
animals.
Florence A. Ruhoff, Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National
Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington
D. C. 20560.
Florence A. Ruhoff
Introduction
1
Most of the published generic and specific names
of Mollusks, Recent and fossil, could be located using
these indices, but there remained the years 1851-1863,
part of the "Golden Age of Malacology," when malacologists
were writing about the results of expeditions
and museum collections were rapidly growing.
No overall index to the literature on Mollusks during
the 1851-1863 period had ever been published.
The malacologists of the National Museum of Natural
History, Smithsonian Institution, realizing the
need for such an index, suggested that I undertake the
project under their direction and in the format established
by the Smithsonian Institution Press.
This compilation is an index to the names of Recent
and fossil Mollusca, at and below the species level,
published during 1850-1870, overlapping and sometimes
duplicating the Index Animalium and Zoological
Record. Generic names are not listed herein, since
that would duplicate the work excellently compiled
by Neave in his Nomenclator Zoologicus.
METHODS.—The index is arranged alphabetically
by species, followed by the genus, author, date, reference,
important redescriptions and illustrations in
subsequent papers of that era. The taxa are cited as
they were originally published including diacritical
markings, misspellings, printer's errors, hyphens, abbreviations,
etc. No attempt has been made to interpret
the species or to apply the rules established by
the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.
That remains for the scholar. The specific