1897. CORRESPONDENCE. 



431 



One is unaccustomed now-a-days to see such a purely artificial classification 

 introduced as an improvement upon others, and it is scarcely fair to impose 

 on the untrained scientific mind by giving, as though there were no question 

 about its sufficiency, an entirely new classification which has not been confirmed and 

 accepted by men who are competent to form an opinion on the subject. It is 

 true that, as Dr. Benham points out, he had published his classification before 

 (though with one Suborder in a different Order, and two families in a different 

 Suborder than they are now ! ) ; but would any authority on the Polychaeta, 

 even had the brief notice in the Report of the British Association come to his- 

 notice, have thought it worth while to confute a classification with so few facts 

 given to support it, and with apparently no account taken of the main difficulties 

 which every one who attempts to classify the Polychaeta has to encounter ? Silence 

 in this case cannot fairly be taken for consent. To anyone who has made a study 

 of the Polychaeta there is only one thing which Dr. Benham's classification shows, 

 and that is which of the forms have been particularly studied by him either directly 

 or indirectly. It is quite evident that, with the aid of Eisig, he knows a good deal 

 about the Capitellidae, and so much is he impressed with their importance that he 

 wonders (p. 303) whether he should not have given the family an even more prominent 

 position than he has, presumably thinking of making it a separate order on a level 

 with the Oligochasta or Myzostomaria, as opposed to all other Polychaeta. Had only 

 Eisig written as elaborate a monograph on every family of the Polychaeta, it is 

 probable that Dr. Benham would have allowed each one as important a position in 

 the system as he now assigns to the Capitellidae As it is. Dr. Benham has had to 

 make out what he can about the other families for himself, and his opportunities for 

 doing so have not been all that could be desired. He has evidently studied some of 

 the British forms most carefully, and has carried his patriotism so far as to assume 

 that they may be allowed to give the key-note to the whole classification, forgetting that 

 it is in warmer seas than ours that these annelids occur in greatest variety. 



Those who have made no special study of the Polychaeta will accept such a 

 classification unhesitatingly, in the same way as they will accept other statements in 

 the book, though by no means established facts, the author going so far in one case as 

 to assume that investigations of his own as yet unpublished may be taken as evidence 

 against the most careful researches of other writers, a course which his ardent 

 admirer seems to uphold. 



Had it not been for the excessiveness of the eulogy bestowed upon the work by this 

 admirer, I would not have felt bound to dwell upon nothing but the shortcomings in the 

 fulfilment of a task, the difficulty of which no one can appreciate more fully than myself. 

 Although my own opinion is that it is better not to publish anything, and especially 

 not for the untrained scientific mind, until all the facts that are known are mastered 

 and digested, I am well aware that the risk is thereby run of never publishing at all 

 knowledge which may have taken years to acquire, and that others may think they 

 are furthering science more by publishing than by withholding their preliminary 

 halting places on the road (which may or may not be the direct road) to knowledge. 



University College, London. F. Buchanan. 



The Extermination of the Golden Eagle. 

 Referring to your remarks at pp. 303-4, I should like to be allowed to say 

 that Mr. Joseph Collinson will do good service to British ornithology, and especially 

 to Yorkshire faunists, if he can substantiate the two records of golden eagles said by 

 him to have been killed in that county within three months ; the two Scotch 

 instances are unhappily too likely to be correct, and are much to be deplored, as 

 they were probably breeding birds. As for the Yorkshire specimens, I incline to Mr. 

 Murdoch's opinion, and my experience has been long and extensive, that the species 

 is incorrectly reported. Of the many reputed golden eagles which I have traced, 

 not one has proved to be of that species, and south of the Tweed all reports of the 

 occurrence of this bird should be received with the greatest caution. Messrs. 

 Clarke and Roebuck in their Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire enumerate seven 

 instances of the occurrence of the golden eagle in Yorkshire since the year 1S04, all 



