1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 75 



often nothing more than an error, the publication of which they sub- 

 sequently regret. We have known authors bitterly to resent criticism 

 of such work, on the ground that it was " nur vorlaiifig"; we have 

 known them calmly to ignore their own published work, flourishing 

 out names and facts as new a year or two later on. As we said of 

 the advance sheet, so we say of the preliminary notice — it is either 

 publication or it is not, and the sooner it is regarded as not publication 

 the better it will be for the world of science. 



These remarks obviously apply chiefly to systematic work, to 

 cases where new names and the description of new species and genera 

 are involved. In the happier department of anatomical work 

 the preliminary notice may sometimes serve a useful purpose. It 

 is the newspaper of science and announces to those interested the 

 nature of new discoveries and the lines upon which investigations are 

 being conducted. Take, for instance, the placenta found by Mr. Hill 

 in a marsupial, and referred to on another page of this issue. It is a 

 discovery of the greatest interest, and we are glad to hear of it long 

 before there is time for the preparation and publication of the elaborate 

 figures and descriptions. The preliminary notice in a case of this 

 kind announces a zoological fact, and is totally different from the 

 preliminary notice of the systematist and theorist, inasmuch as in- 

 sufficient descriptions of new species and unsupported speculations 

 are not zoolosrical facts. 



" Premature Births." 



An esteemed correspondent draws our attention to the way in 

 which new species are introduced to the world in the jfournal of the 

 Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. On turning 

 to the number issued in February last, we find that Professor C. C. 

 Nutting publishes imperfect descriptions of three new species of 

 hydroids, of which full descriptions with figures are promised to be 

 given in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Next comes Mr. 

 Bassett-Smith with a number of new copepods, of which " a descrip- 

 tion, with figures, will be published shortly elsewhere." In the 

 section headed " Faunistic Notes " we find a description, which is 

 certainly more intelligible, but still published in rather too modest a 

 fashion, of a new species of nudibranchiate mollusc, by Mr. W. 

 Garstang. Further on, in a paper entitled " Algological Notes," by 

 Mr. George Brebner, we are introduced to some four names under the 

 form " Batt. in lit.," although it appears from a note at the end of the 

 paper that the names were no longer in Uteris, but had been already 

 published in the Journal of Botany. Whether these names be nomina 

 nuda, or whether the few lines that follow each of them be intended as 

 a preliminary description, does not very much matter ; in eit her case 

 the introduction of new names in such a manner is not to be com- 

 mended. " It can," says our correspondent, " only be from want of 



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