2 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 29 5 



disavowed competence for the task and referred it to a successor, 

 preferably a "zoologist"; they then proceeded to use the name sensu 

 lato. Others, with no more information but with more courage of 

 their convictions, have used instead Nesidea, which, because it is 

 based on a Recent type species and by common agreement applies 

 only to living species of "Bairdia," has been felt to be a more precise 

 term though its morphologic boundaries are identical with "Bairdia." 



Certainly, the taxonomist with the whole animal before him has a 

 very real advantage over the one confronted by fragmentary skeletal 

 remains. The soft-part anatomy of podocopid ostracodes does reveal 

 rapidly evaluable data concerning phenetic and phyletic affinities of 

 taxa, yet an equivalent amount of equally significant and entirely 

 congruent information is embodied in the carapace morphology. It is 

 true that in some forms, for example the Bairdiidae, carapace shape 

 may be difficult to define, evaluate, and communicate, but this is a 

 problem of technique rather than of inherent information, and it is a 

 difficulty that will be reduced in future by application of geometric 

 and statistical techniques of description and analysis. Meanwhile, the 

 investigation of soft-part characters wherever possible may be rec- 

 ommended both as a shortcut to and a test of a stable taxonomic 

 system. Thus it is logical to look among living species of the family 

 Bairdiidae for a representative sampling of hard- and soft-part 

 morphologies from which to construct and distinguish the higher 

 taxonomic categories of the proposed revision. 



In spite of the abundant representation of "Bairdia^' in modern 

 assemblages, very few species (25, 10 by Muller alone) have had 

 soft parts even partially described. Only two authors (Muller, 1894; 

 Kornicker, 1961) have attempted to specify characters that might 

 be useful in establishing a generic classification; others have been 

 prone merely to conclude that the anatomy of the species described 

 is essentially that of a "Bairdia." As for the other available genera of 

 Recent Bairdiidae, no soft parts have been described for well- 

 established species of either Triebelina or Bairdoppilata. Bythocypris 

 (female soft parts have been described for three species) has been mis- 

 applied to smooth-shelled forms of indeterminate outline, uncertain 

 affinities, and indiscriminate age. Anchistrocheles has been effectually 

 ignored for lack of well-described species to be assigned there. 



The wealth of living material collected by recent expeditions and 

 especially by the International Indian Ocean Expedition brings the 

 total of living species of Bairdiidae with illustrated or illustrable soft 

 parts to 54. At this point it becomes both feasible and obligatory to 

 attempt to use this information to establish a generic classification 

 that will be an improvement over the anarchy now prevailing. This 

 I have tried to do. The resulting classification is both preliminary and 



