1896. SOME NEW BOOKS. 121 



suggestion offered for the fusion of genera, once more illustrating the 

 point that the systematist is apt to find in nature, not a dearth of 

 links and gradations, but an embarrassing glut of them. Among the 

 many valuable specimens, new or rare, which are here carefully 

 described, some of the most interesting are those belonging to the 

 genus Evyoneicus, founded by Spence Bate on a single imperfect speci- 

 men half-an-inch long. As the " Albatross " obtained eight specimens, 

 of which the largest was nearly two-and-a-half inches in length, various 

 corrections and improvements in the description of these singular 

 animals have become possible. It is discovered, for instance, that 

 the ophthalmopods, instead of being absent, " consist of a large lobe, 

 immovably fixed in a deep sinus in the anterior border of the carapace, 

 this lobe sends forth an elongated cylindrical process outward and 

 downward below the antero-lateral angle of the carapace ; the anterior 

 margin of the lobe, moreover, bears a prominent papilla, or tubercle." 

 Among the Schizopoda of the deep-sea, Mr. Faxon describes one in 

 which the eye-stalks are transformed to sharp spines, the visual 

 elements being absent, and another in which also the eyes are absent, 

 " their stalks assuming the form of slender styles whose tips are soft 

 and delicate, perhaps serving as tactile organs." 



In a work of this importance the characters of genera, revised and, 

 where possible, condensed by so trustv/orthy an authority as Mr. 

 Faxon, might appropriately have been given, and would have been 

 highly welcome. What with the brevity of some authors and the 

 prolixity of others, the student has no easy task in making out the real 

 distinctions of genera, even with the requisite literature at his com- 

 mand. But how few have time or opportunity to supplement the study 

 of Faxon by consulting the works of Roux and Rathbun, Leach and 

 Lockington, de Haan and Dana, Stimpson and S. I. Smith, Miers and 

 Alphonse Milne-Edwards, and the other eminent writers by whom 

 these distinctions have been established. 



In one small particular Mr. Faxon must be considered to have 

 wilfully defaced his otherwise admirable volume. He takes upon 

 himself repeatedly to alter the spelling of established names, with no 

 prospect of any material advantage, and with the certainty of produc- 

 ing some amount of confusion. For example, the genera Etlmsa, 

 Roux, and Ethusina, S. I. Smith, are changed respectively into 

 /Etlmsa and Aithusina. These altered forms are assigned to the 

 original authors ; but they are, in fact, new names, and, if accepted, 

 would have to be accredited to Faxon. A change affecting an initial 

 letter is particularly objectionable, because the name is thereby dis- 

 placed in indices, and becomes difficult to find. But what is, above 

 all, wanted in a scientific name is permanence. If every fastidious 

 scholar is to be allowed to do a little furbishing, there can be no 

 fixity. A change of fashion may insist that the Greek atdovcra should 

 be transliterated neither into Ethusa nor yEthusa, but into Aithousa, 

 or written in the character of the language to which it belongs. 

 The latter change might have a chastening effect on the inventors 

 of mongrel compounds. By improving Savigny's PasipJura into 

 PasipJuma, Mr. Faxon inflicts on natural history a name of six 

 syllables where one of four hitherto sufficed. As he himself points 

 out, Risso had already in 1826 improved the name into Pasiphae. 

 Risso's action was mischievous enough in using up a name which no 

 less then three entomologists have since attempted to appropriate, 

 but now we are brought to a pretty pass. If we cannot be content 

 with the form which Savigny himself passed for press, namely, 

 Pasiphaa, we must for the future range ourselves in opposing camps, 



K 



