To Harry et al
>
>Although G. B. Sowerby II didn't exactly state he was naming Murex Saulii
[sic]
>after Miss Jane Saul, it is quite obvious that he knew of a specimen(s) of
this

From the what he said in the paper there is in theory at least three
specimens that should make up the syntype series which were originally in
the following collections One in Saul's collection, one in Stainforth's
collection and one in Reeve's collection.

>new taxon in her (then already famous; now at Cambridge, UK) collection.
>Placing myself in a contemporary readership and considering the author's
renown
>as a "shocking latinist,"  I would argue that Reeve's emendation of the
>specific name to "Sauliae" was "justified" (ICZN-speak for kosher), but it a
>isn't an "air-tight case" (and G. B. S.'s linguistic deficiencies might be
>deemed "irrelevant" to the nomenclatorial argument in an ICZN proceeding).

This may be true but unless Reeve asked Sowerby if that is what he intended
and has indicated as such - even Reeve is only making an assumption. It
could be just as easily possible that Miss Saul asked GB. Sowerby to name
the shell after some relative etc as well (the obvious assumption is not
always the correct one) so if we assume L. Reeve had some idea of what was
going on or there is some note on the actual specimen (if it still exists)
then we could accept this but otherwise we have to leave it as is.
Regardless of how bad Sowerby was considered to be with latin.

>I presume the actual date of publication of the original description of Murex
>Saulii [sic] in Proc. Zool. Soc. London was 1841; or was it 1840?

The date of publication was 1841, the volume of the Proc Zool Soc Lond is
1840. The meeting at which the paper was read was either Oct or Nov 1840 -
I don't have the intervening pages. And the paper directly proceeding this
one was by his father and named two Philippine land snails including Helix
annulata (Helicostyla annulata).

I enjoy a lot going back to the original literature and things like the
above are the reasons I have made special efforts to find and see the
original descriptions especially of Australian species I am working with.
For example by doing this I have in the last 18 months or so corrected
several errors including the following two taxonomic errors.  One was an
extremely rare one by Tom Iredale for the correct author of a small
estuarine nerite which had been in the museum collection files etc since
1938 and the other was one of the 72 species of freshwater snails am
currently writing up which was described in 1863 by Fraunfeld but for the
last century or so it was thought he named it in 1865 instead.

>Did Snyder (1986) actually say he named Latirus anni for his wife?  Can you
>provide the reference?

The full reference is
Snyder,MA., 1986. Fusinus anni (Gastropoda: Fasciolariidae), a new species
from southeastern Australia. Journal of the Malacological Society of
Australia. 7(3-4):125-129.

on page 128 it says - This species is named for my wife, a good friend and
a helpful critic.

It is interesting to note that Winston Ponder of the Australian Museum had
intended once to revise the Fusinus group (but alsa this will not happen)
and had intended to name the above species after his own wife Julie - but
when Martin indicated that he thought the species was new to Winston -
Winston helped him out with some extra notes etc.

Stephanie



******************************************************************************
Stephanie A. Clark

Invertebrate Identification
Unit 4/17 Morris Street
PO Box 418
Summer Hill, NSW 2130
Australia

phone  61 (02) 9799 5689  fax  61 (02) 9799 5610  mobile  0412 372388
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