Vv. 
The Distribution and Generic Evolution of Some 
Kecent Brachiopoda. 
E had recently occasion to summarise the salient features of some 
modern publications on the anatomy and development of the 
Brachiopoda.!' The past year was certainly remarkable for the pro- 
duction of excellent memoirs on this group of organisms. The great 
work, modestly entitled by Professor James Hall ‘‘ An introduction 
to the study of the Genera of Paleozoic Brachiopoda,” noticed in the 
October number of NaTuRAL SCIENCE (p. 628) is truly of an epoch- 
marking character, and a distinct revelation that the problem of the 
origin of species, so far as the Brachiopoda are concerned, is becoming 
merged in that of the evolution of genera. 
It may be as well to recall the fact that the results of three 
American dredging expeditions and several French marine explora- 
tions have been worked out since Davidson’s Report on the 
‘«‘ Challenger”? Brachiopoda was issued in 1880. It is from a review 
of the material obtained by the “ Travailleur,” the ‘‘Talisman’”’ (2, 3), 
the scientific mission to Cape Horn of the ‘‘ Romanche” (4), and three 
of Prince Albert 1st of Monaco’s ‘‘ Hirondelle” voyages (5) that the well- 
known French conchologists, Dr. Paul Fischer and D.-P. Céhlert 
have jointly derived the conclusions to which we are about to refer. 
It is fortunate that the rich harvests of results gathered in such 
distant regions should have been all entrusted to the experienced 
hands of the authors of the ‘‘ Manuel de Conchyliologie et de Palzeon- 
tologie conchyliologique.”” They have thus been enabled to formulate 
generalisations of value concerning the transition of genera, the dis- 
tribution of some recent species, and their relations to the fossil forms 
of the Tertiary epoch. It is, perhaps, advisable to premise that 
Bayle’s name Magellania is employed throughout to replace that of the 
far more familiar generic appellation Waldheimia of King, the use of 
which has been abandoned by Messrs. Céhlert, Fischer, Dall and 
others, because it had been previously given a few years before to a 
genus of hymenoptera ; although, as M. Eugéne Deslongschamps has 
observed, it would seem impossible that anyone could confuse a 
1 NATURAL SCIENCE, vol. i., p. 603. 
