THE NEW GENEALOGICAL TREE 393 



The notion of Ameria which represents an unsegmented 

 state of body and its use for the taxonomic purposes is not 

 something entirely new. It is only the contents of this notion 

 which are new. Houssay (quotation after Krumbach, 1937:13) 

 came close to this notion by creating the notions and the names 

 Paurometamera and Polymetamera which, however, are limited 

 to the Enterocoelia only. Schneider (1902) seems to have 

 been the first zoologist to have used the word Ameria, yet 

 he used it for an entirely different notion, i.e. for the Echi- 

 nodermata only which he included in the phylum Coelen- 

 teria. Much closer to our notion of Ameria stands the notion 

 which was introduced by Biitschli (1910) under the name 

 Amera and which has as a taxon other contents. Biitschli 

 who was followed in this point by the editors of the Handhuch 

 der Zoologie (Kiikenthal- Krumbach) does not include among 

 the Ameria either the Coelenterata or the Mollusca; he and 

 the editors of the Handhuch still adhered firmly to the notion 

 Vermes, which is used for practical reasons only, yet in no 

 way as a taxonomic unit. 



As regards the Coelenterata it has been shown that there 

 is no such animal group, and that both the Cnidaria and the 

 Ctenophora belong to the phylum Ameria because they had 

 both evolved from the Turbellaria. 



It is in agreement with our definition of the Ameria if 

 we include among them the Mollusca in spite of the discovery 

 of Neopilina by Lemche (1958) and in spite of his interpre- 

 tations. In another w^ork I have discussed in extenso the case 

 of Neopilina (cf. Hadzi, in press). For a long time scholars 

 have endeavoured (and there are some zoologists who try 

 to do this even now), to bring the Mollusca into a closer 

 connection with the Annelida, and thus with the Polymeria; 

 this was done in such a way that they have declared the 

 Mollusca to be secondarily simplified animals (this was sug- 

 gested especially by the older zoologists), or they have 

 considered them as animals which have just reached the initial 

 stage of the polymerous state. Those who believe in a closer 



