2 12 balanidje. 



names given ought, in my opinion, to carry little weight with 

 them. With respect to Lamarck's Balanus radiatus (1818), 

 the synonyms quoted exhibit some great and inextricable 

 confusion. The B. radiatus, again, of Risso, is a fossil and 

 apparently distinct species. There can be no doubt that 

 the present species is the Lcpas balanoides of Poli, (and of 

 several authors who have followed him), and equally little 

 doubt that the present species is not the true L. balanoides 

 of Linnaeus, which has a membranous basis, and which I 

 have not seen from the Mediterranean. Under these cir- 

 cumstances I have concluded that less confusion would be 

 caused by giving a new name to this species than by taking 

 that of Wood, which ought not to have been used by him, 

 considering Bruguiere's previous adoption of it. 



Under the head of B. tintinnabulum I have alluded to the 

 great variation of B, amphitrite, which consists not only in 

 a vast diversity in the colouring and in the general aspect, 

 but likewise in the degree of obliquity of the summits of 

 the radii, in the form of the terga, and slightly in that of 

 the scuta. In order to show that it has not been from 

 indolence that I have put so many forms together, I may 

 state that I had already named and fully described in 

 detail eight of the following forms as species, when I 

 became finally convinced that they were only varieties : 

 it would require at least thirty figures, which I have not 

 the power to give, fully to illustrate the transitional forms. 

 As with B. tintinnabulum, the deception is wonderfully 

 enhanced by whole groups of specimens from the same 

 locality exactly resembling each other, and sometimes 

 differing from other groups attached to the very same 

 object. If a person were to get together only some fifty 

 or sixty specimens from only half a dozen different locali- 

 ties, he would almost certainly come to the same con- 

 clusion, as I at first did, that several of the varieties are 

 true species ; but when he gets several hundred specimens 

 from all quarters of the globe, he will find, to his trouble 

 and vexation, that character after character fails and blends 

 away by insensible degrees, and he will be led, as the more 

 prudent course, to include, as I have done, and I hope 

 rightly, all under one specific name. I have experienced 



