The recent Mollusca of Augustus Addison Gould

The Recent Mollusca of Augustus Addison Gould Introduction This study is an attempt to bring together the original references to all the Recent mollusks described by Augustus Addison Gould, to locate as many of the type specimens as possible, and to figure all types previously unfigured, selecting lectotypes when required. It is not to be inferred that the author regards the fixation of types as a final goal in systematics. Types are only taxonomic building blocks. We are still faced with the problem of taxonomic stability in mollusks, of making "taxonomy 1864" sufficiently precise to serve the needs of "taxonomy 1964" and, although the old typological concept has been replaced by the population concept, we still have to fix and clarify many of the species. In this regard, we should judge the work of older naturalists such as Gould by the best standards of their own times and not by our own. It has not been our purpose to bring up to date each of the species covered; this is a task for individual revisers. If we have helped to make this task easier and their conclusions more precise, our purpose will have been served. It gives me pleasure to thank those people whose willing cooperation has eased the task of accumulating data. Special thanks are due to Drs. Harald A. Render and Joseph P. E. Morrison of the United States National Museum for their ever-willing aid in searching for types, for suffering numerous interruptions in their own research, for helping with the mounting and dismounting of specimens for photography, and for performing tiresome but necessary tasks connected with the project. Dr. Vincente Conde made available for study the P. P. Carpenter collection at the Peter Redpath Museum, McGill University, Mon-treal, Canada, and loaned types for photographing. Drs. J. W. Wells and W. Storrs Cole of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, made available certain types in the W. Newcomb collection. Dr. W. K. Emerson of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, and Mr. Peter Dance and Mr. H. M. Muir-Wood of the British 1