A TRIBUTE TO SPENCE BATE 255 



surprising length of the eye-stalks. This reaches its 

 maximum in Eretmocaris longicaulis (see Plate XIII.), so 

 far as comparative measurements are concerned. The 

 specimen, it is true, is less than a quarter of an inch long, 

 if the eyes are not counted in, but the length is doubled 

 if they are, for these stalked eyes are more than a quarter 

 of an inch long, a proportion between the organ of vision 

 and the rest of the body which probably no other animal 

 in the world can boast of. 



In quitting at this point the assistance of Mr. Spence 

 Bate's ' Eeport on the Challenger Macrura,' it is right to pay 

 a tribute to the vast labour which that work must have 

 involved, and to the great ability shown in it although 

 amidst many inaccuracies and much want of method. 

 Unfortunately the nomenclature which Mr. Spence Bate 

 adopted makes it sometimes more difficult to read his 

 descriptions than those written in a foreign tongue. He 

 formed the grand conception of giving one invariable 

 name to each part of a crustacean, as it might appear 

 under every possible modification, throughout the whole 

 class. For the comparative anatomist no scheme could be 

 more valuable, but for the students of different orders 

 there is always the chance that such an arrangement 

 will be irritating and repellent. The name that may 

 commend itself as obvious and natural in one group 

 becomes wholly inappropriate in another. Supreme skill 

 might override many difficulties by inventing terms of 

 great simplicity, not inappropriate to any group by being 

 especially appropriate to none. But simplicity seems to 

 have been the very last thing considered in Spence Bate's 

 terminology, and though such words as phymacerite, 

 psalistoma, and stylamblys, may help to curtail the length 

 of descriptions, they are only too likely also to curtail the 

 number of those that read them. 



