REPORT ON THE AMPHIPODA. xix 



folding anteunse, may be regarded as the latest development, but the whole group of 

 Hyperina must be supposed to be interconnected, not to be derived partly from one 

 branch and partly from another branch of the existing Gammarina. It may be noticed, 

 indeed, that though the Gammarina by their maxillipeds testify to an older type than is 

 seen in the Hyperina, yet the latter in some genera retain in their turn a mark of anti- 

 quity which the Gammarina have lost, in the simjilicity of the gnathopods, for these in 

 Dairella and Lycaiopsis are like ordinary perpeopods. The general structure of the upper 

 antennae in the Hyperina calls to mind the family Lysianassidae, but there is the marked 

 distinction that in none of the Hyperina is there a secondary flagellum to these antennae ; 

 yet here the recently discovered Hyperiopsis v0ringn, Sars, may supply a link, since with 

 the antennae of the Lysianassidae this curious species combines the eyes of a Hyperid. A 

 connection between the Hyperina and the Lysianassidae has already been indicated by 

 Boeck, who placed the family Prostomatidae at the head of the Gammarina, in immediate 

 sequence to the Hyperina, because of the agreement which he considered to exist between 

 that family and the Hyperidae and Orchestidae. The Prostomatidae are in close relation- 

 ship with the Lysianassidae, and might, in my view, well be included in the older family. 

 But if the Hjrperina make any real approach to the Lysianassidae, it must not be supposed 

 that they are derived from them, for the mandibles of the Gammaroid Hyperina point 

 more directly to the Gam7narzis -iorm than to that found in the Trochalognatha. 



In offering these contributory suggestions towards a classification of the Amphipoda, 

 my hope is that- either by occasionally hitting the mark they may be of service, or that 

 where they have missed it they may provoke a fruitful criticism, and either way that 

 they may excite the ambition of the discerning and ingenious to throw light upon the 

 many problems which are still obscure. 



Nomenclature. — Most naturalists will sjinpathise with the lady who thought that, 

 of all the discoveries astronomers had made about the stars, the finding out their names 

 was the most wonderful. In zoology the new discoveries are generally far more 

 troublesome to name than they would be if they were only stars or planets. A genus of 

 sharks is l:)ound to give way, if it turns out that a genus of animalcules has received the 

 same appellation a mouth earlier, and the genus of animalcules, however laboriously 

 and scientifically described, must give way in its turn, if it should prove that the same 

 group of creatures has been obscured rather than explained fifty years before under a 

 different name. But apart from these casualties, there is the enormous and increasing 

 difficulty which arises from the multitude of workers in every field of natural history, 

 who, in the absence of any rule or convention to the contrary, publish new genera and 

 species in any literary vehicle that is for the moment handiest. One isolated description 

 may have to be sought for in a costly volume of travels, and another in the local journal of 

 Timbuctoo. It is rather to be wished than expected that an international law in science 

 should intervene, and allow validity and priority only to names adequately published in 



