234 



to shew that certain observations of mine had priority of publication 

 over certain observations of Mr. Bourne's. I say priority of publi- 

 cation, for that is the only sort of priority Ave can argue about; the • 

 fact that Mr. Bourne conducted his investigations in Naples in March, 

 1882, that he submitted his report to the British Association Committee 

 in June, etc. etc., has nothing to do with and merely tends to confuse 

 the main issue. The fact remains that the first publication of the 

 results of Mr. Bourne's work was in September 1883, and that of 

 mine in Sydney in August 1882 (equivalent to a publication in Lon- 

 don six to eight weeks later) and in the Zoologischer Anzeiger in 

 October 1882, the latter date being more than two months before Mr. 

 Bourne's paper was read at the Linnean Society. Whatever then the 

 respective merits of the papers in question I contend that to notice 

 in a foot-note with the preface »Since the above was written(f (as if it 

 had just been seen in time for the press) a paper published in a Avidely 

 circulated periodical a considerable time before, is scarcely the sort of 

 treatment calculated, as Mr. Bourne says he intended it, to »encour- 

 age the meritorious activity of a colonial naturalist, (f 



Mr. Bourne states that I wish to claim priority of discovery of 

 the external openings of the segmental organs of Pohjnoë and that I 

 am very bold in doing so. Now, as I pointed out in a note on the sub- 

 ject of those organs also published before Mr. Bourne's original 

 paper was read, that the openings were known as regards the genus 

 Aphrodita toTreviranus and to Qua tre fag es and doubtless to many 

 between them, and as regards Hermadion fragile to Claparède, this 

 statement must be untrue. 



But Mr. Bourne also alleges that I did nothing more tlianV>^ 

 serve the external openings (which had been done before), gave no 

 figure »because I had seen nothing that could be figured« and merely 

 expressed the »pious opinion« that the openings were the openings of 

 segmental organs, and that, therefore, there was nothing that Mr. ''^ 

 Bourne need have noticed in the body of his paper. Now all this is 

 not only unfair, but untrue. I do not think that either Mr. Bourfie or 

 myself have added greatly to the facts known about the segmental 

 organs of the Aphroditeu., but, as anyone who reads my papers can 

 readily ascertain, Mr. Bourne is taking quite the wrong way to 

 justify himself. I not only pointed out the interpretation of the state- 

 ments on this subject of Williams and of Ehlers and described the 

 position of the efferent duct of the organs, but T also traced the cili- 

 ated tube inwards into the body and towards the iiiiddle line, observed 

 the presence of concretionary matter in its walls, found in several in- 

 stances spermatozoa passing naturally out through it (a fact which 



