CATALOGUE 



CYCLOSTOMATOUS POLYZOA. 



INTRODUCTION. 



With our present imperfect knowledge of many points in the 

 structure and life-history of the Polyzoa, and the difficulty (more 

 especially in the present Suborder) of arriving at any satisfactory 

 natural arrangement merely from the inspection of the dead skeletons, 

 the classification here adopted can only be regarded as provisional. 



Towards a more natural system the labours of Prof. F. A. Smitt 

 have of late years afforded much valuable suggestive matter ; and 

 although unprepared to follow Prof. Smitt in many of his conclusions, 

 and disposed to disagree with him in many points as regards the 

 limitation of genera and species, the Author is fully convinced that 

 Prof. Smitt's observations will mark the commencement of a new era 

 in the study of the Polyzoa, and that they will serve, in many cases, 

 to indicate the direction in which our attempts at their natural 

 classification should proceed. 



The classification adopted in this Catalogue is nearly the 

 same as that followed in the Author's ' Monograph of the Fossil 

 Polyzoa of the Crag,' 1859, p. 91 — a classification which in its 

 main features does not diff'er very widely from that employed by 



