1888.] NATUEA.L SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 431 



think, be out of place." Over against such an expression as this I 

 am willing to place my critic's words, "'Mr. INIcCook is inclined,, 

 however, to set too high a value on these drawings." 



0. Finally, I think I may say under all the circumstances that 

 I am excusable for believing that my so called "discovery" of 

 Abbot's drawings was a genuine novelty. I cannot remember a 

 single allusion in any araneological literature to the existence in the- 

 British ^Museum or elsewhere of those drawings. The last reference 

 made to them of which I have knowledge was Dr. L. M. Underwood's 

 paper on the "Progress of Arachuology in America," in the American 

 Xaturalist of November 1887. The author alludes to Abbot's 

 manusci'ipts (miscalling him "Thomas," by the way, instead of 

 "John"), and- adds. "Knowledge of the date of preparation of this 

 series of drawings, as well as its present place and condition is want- 

 ing. But it was in London as early as 1802, and was purchased by 

 Baron Walekenaer in 1821." Mr. Emerton, in his several admira- 

 ble monographs, makes no reference to the fact that he knew of the- 

 existence of the drawings, and does not make the slightest attempt 

 to compare the list in his possession with the descriptions of Walek- 

 enaer. This seems to me all the more remarkable in view of the 

 tact, as above sliown, that he had accurately determined some of 

 Hentz's species as identical with some of Abbot's numbers, and could 

 readily have made the further step of determining their correspond- 

 ence witli Walckenaer's descriptions. His reasons for this reserve 

 are doubtless satisfactory to himself, and I will iiot venture to criti- 

 cize tljcin; Init will say that I am quite satisfied with having taken 

 the opposite course and given to the world, at the earliest available 

 opportunity, the information which had accidentally been placed in 

 my possession, and which I believed at the time to be new and 

 valuable. That it was new to most students of spiders has been 

 made very certain by the responses to my paper. That it is valuable 

 may in some minds admit of doubt; but, on the whole, I think that 

 I have shown here, if not before, that the measure of doubt is very 

 small. 



Food of Barnacles. — Prof Lfidy stated that last summer, in 

 June, while walking on shore at Beach Haven, N. J., he picked up 

 a bunch of Goose-barnacles, Lepas faselcularis, attached to a frag- 

 ment of a grass stem, Spartina. Finding at the time nothing else 

 of interest, he examined the specimens, not having previously dissec- 

 ted a Barnacle since 1848, when he observed the eyes in Balunus 

 rugosus (See Proc. 1848, 9). 



All the specimens of Lepas, of which there were nine, had the 

 body distended with a brownish-yellow Cyclops, in large number,. 

 fresii in appearance and generally entire. Under the circumstances 

 he at first suspected that they might be a larval form of the Lepas^ 

 though aware of the fact that the cirripeds proceed from a Nauplius 

 embryo, which passes through a Cypris stage before assuming the- 

 Barnacle condition. On further investigation he was convinced 



