1895. A PASS AGE- AT -ARMS OVER THE AMPHIPODA. 261 



Amphipoda Gammaridea in his native Italian, a language which in 

 this country is greatly admired and seldom read. But each of these 

 works is so lavishly illustrated that its usefulness is in a large measure 

 independent of the language in which it happens to be written. 

 All but the blind, in short, may profit by the multitude of drawings, 

 giving portraits in full, larger than life, and details still more 

 highly magnified, of the various animals described. The coloured 

 figures ought to convince even the most prejudiced that some of 

 these little crustaceans, when alive, are charmingly arrayed. Whether 

 in sober hues or bright ones, in plain or motley costume, they often 

 exhibit a strangely interesting adaptation to the surroundings in 

 which they are to be found. Some please the eye with their pearly 

 delicacy of tinting. Some are resplendently striped or banded. 

 Some are brilliant all over with rose or carmine. 



The work by Professor Sars, though far advanced, is still 

 unfinished. It is not included within the scope of the present review, 

 except for the purpose of pointing out a special and singular contrast 

 which exists between it and Professor Delia Valle's kindred volumes. 



Science is helpless without classification. Classification is help- 

 less without names. There was a time when authorities like Linnaeus 

 and Fabricius were content to arrange all the crustaceans they knew 

 under Cancer, Oniscus, and Gammarus. Gammavus itself was a daring 

 innovation. But now there are hundreds of genera, and, as for 

 species, they multiply like aphides. On this subject there are 

 naturally two currents of opinion. Those who, by diligence of minute 

 research, distinguish one living form from another wish to have their 

 discovery ticketed with an imperishable label. A new species is 

 accordingly named. But those who follow the footsteps of the dis- 

 coverer are often disposed to think his distinctions trivial and his 

 names superfluous. They afford but little satisfaction to a naturalist 

 who has specimens to arrange in a cabinet, the fauna of a district to 

 catalogue, or some considerable group to describe in a monograph. 

 Thus, while scientific energy is continually adding to the nomencla- 

 ture of science, there is a continual Jonging to simplify and reduce it. 



Seeing, then, that from different standpoints writers have a 

 natural bias towards different systems or principles of classification, 

 there is little need for surprise that Sars should be found in favour 

 of one system and Delia Valle in favour of the other ; but it is a 

 remarkable coincidence that the two professors should at the same 

 period have been treating the same subject, the same branch of it, 

 and often identically the same details of it, from the two opposite 

 points of view ; especially as they have both, not without a great 

 expenditure of money and time and labour, endeavoured in the most 

 elaborate manner to introduce to the notice and favour of the public 

 a group of animals about which, according to my own poor experience, 

 the public at large, as I have already gently hinted, knows nothing 

 and cares less. Professor Sars, as might have been expected from 



