Miscellaneous. 373 



to the British list ; and of these it appears that no less than thirty- 

 three have been first described by Mr. Gosse, twelve of them in the 

 work now under consideration. Moreover, for the discovery of twelve 

 of the new species we are indebted to our author ; so that he may put 

 in a strong claim to be considered the historian of the British Sea- 

 Anemones. Amongst the additions, it is interesting to see that no 

 less than ten species of Coralligenous Polypes occur in our seas, 

 Johnston only describing three, if we omit the Pocillopora inter- 

 stincta, which is inserted by Mr. Gosse with a note of interrogation. 



As we have already described the mode in which Mr. Gosse has 

 treated his subject, it will be unnecessary to enter upon its considera- 

 tion here, further than by stating that he has executed his plan 

 most judiciously throughout ; his descriptions are clear and charac- 

 teristic ; and the habits of the animals are treated of in that agreeable 

 manner which must be familiar to all readers of Mr. Gosse's books. 

 The system adopted by Mr. Gosse in conferring English names upon 

 the Sea-Anemones is also worthy of notice, as he has, by a bold 

 manufacture of diminutive names, most happily succeeded in avoid- 

 ing those sesquipedalian combinations which usually render the so- 

 called English names of animals more uncouth and unpronounceable 

 than their scientific denominations. 



The last Part contains an Index and an Introduction, the latter 

 giving a description of the anatomy and physiology of the Helian- 

 thoid Polypes, which will be found of great service to the student, 

 especially as so many of the anatomical terms now adopted for these 

 and many other groups of the lower animals are not to be found in 

 any of our zoological text-books. We have already spoken of the great 

 beauty of the illustrations, and may therefore now take leave of Mr. 

 Gosse's book, in the hope that many of our readers will avail them- 

 selves of such an excellent guide in the investigation of the interesting 

 order of animals to which it is devoted. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Darwin on the Origin of Species. 



By Prof. Asa Gray, Cambridge, United States *. 



[In our Number for September last we placed before our readers an 

 extract from the forthcoming volume of Prof. Agassiz's * Contribu- 

 tions to the Natural History of the United States,' relating to the 

 interesting question as to the origin of species, newly raised by Mr. 

 Darwin's well-known book. We now give a notice on the opposite 

 side of the question to that taken by Prof. Agassiz, from the pen of 

 another able naturalist of the United States, for the communication 

 of which we are indebted to Mr. Darwin. — Eds.] 



" I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dis- 

 passionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which 

 most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly entertained — namely 

 that each species has been independently created — is erroneous. I 

 * From the 'Atlantic Monthly/ August 1860. , 



