LIXNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 65 



Thompson's term Polyzoa is venial, considering the date of its 

 publication. Thus in 1814 Leach named an order Podosoma, 

 which in 1816 he silently corrected into a proper plural Podoso- 

 mata. In 1843 the French author Rene Primevcre Lesson 

 recalls the family Plethosoma which he had established in 1828, in 

 order at the later date to make of it a tribe, with the name 

 unaltered, and including in it a genus also named PUthosoma. 



It will be no breach of confidence, I think, to quote the 

 unpublished words of a leading authority on this subject, who 

 writes to me as follows : " I base my action on two considerations : 

 (1) That Thompson was the first to recognize the Polyzoa as a 

 distinct type of structure in the Animal Kingdom ; aud, moreover, 

 introduced a name that can quite fairly be used as that of the 

 Class or Phylum. (2) That a large proportion of the w^ork that 

 has been done on the group has been done by men who have 

 consistently spoken of these animals as the Polyzoa. I need only 

 mention Busk, Allmau, Hincks, Norman, aud perhaps Hyatt in 

 America." 



As a matter of fact, it was appnrently Dr. Gray m 1840 who 

 first gave currency to Polvzoa (in the plural) as the rrame of an 

 extensive animal group, while Busk by his arguments in 1852 and 

 1859 procured for it vogue among his English followers. It may 

 just possibly be contended that Thompson himself used Polyzoa in 

 the plural number, since on page 02 of his Memoirs he says : " The 

 Polyzoa will probably be found in many dissimilar Genera of the 

 Zoophites, and even"mixed up with Hydra in some, as they appear 

 to be in the 8ertularia of authors." It should suffice to say that 

 the very paragraph in which this ambiguous " they " occurs ends 

 with the genuine plural Polyzoae. But yet again on page 96 we 

 read " the Polyzoa however are essentially difl:erent.-"' That this 

 is merely a slip of the pen or a printer's error seems absolutely 

 certain, since we have Polyzose on page 97 and on page 99, and the 

 Introductory Address, incorporated in Vol. I. of the Eesearches, 

 promises a future article on " Animals of some Cellariae, Tubuli- 

 poroi and Plustracise, proved to be Polyzose." 



That Thompson's use of the word Polyzoa antedates Ehren- 

 berg's introduction of the name Bryozoa cannot be denied. 



Whether these various considerations, or any others which I 

 have failed to discover, justify our eminent English authorities in 

 their usage of the term Polyzoa, is a question now to be presented 

 from an opposite point of view. 



Strangely enough the first witness to be called is Busk, the very 

 fons et ori>/o mali, as evidence himself against himself. Speaking 

 of Vaughan Thompson, he says, " It is to be remarked that he 

 used the word in the singular number, so that the plural term 

 ' Polyzoa,' as now employed, though etymologically more correct 

 is not in reality synonymous with that of Dr. J. V. Thompson." 

 And he adds that' this fact " may fairly enough be used as an 

 argument in their favour by those who are inclined to prefer the 



LINN. SOC. PKOCEEDIJfGS, — SESSION 1910-1911. / 



