176 NATURAL SCIENCE. Sept.. 1894. 



of Seoane's own names over names proposed by Howard Saunders 

 and Reichenow. The sooner such writings are ruled out of court, 

 the better it will be for systematic zoology. 



Another case of what seems illegitimate " Species-making and 

 Species-taking," is illustrated by a little polemic now proceeding 

 between two well-known palaeontologists, Professor Ralph Tate, 

 of Adelaide, and Dr. Bittner, of the Royal and Imperial Geological 

 Institute of Vienna. Every now and again some " lumping 

 palaeontologist " figures two specimens to represent the same 

 species; then, to his annoyance, one of the "splitting" students of 

 that science promptly makes a new species out of the second figure. 

 We have all heard of cases in which some over-zealous member of 

 the nouvelle ecole of conchology has made a second species out of a 

 different view of the same specimen. Dr. Bittner has not been 

 so unscientific as this. Some time ago Professor Tate sent to 

 Vienna a collection of specimens of the Australian Lower 

 Tertiary Echinoidea. As this fauna has not yet been fully worked 

 out. Professor Tate asserts that he was very careful to send 

 only well-known species, and to select what he regarded as 

 most typical forms. Nevertheless, so different are Dr. Bittner's 

 and Professor Tate's views of specific differences, that the former 

 subsequently issued a paper (" Ueber Echiniden des Tertiars von 

 Australien." Sitzher. Ak. Wiss. Wien., Bd. ci., Abth. i., pp. 331-371, 

 pis. i.-iv.) in which he founded seven new species and one new 

 variety on this material. That he also established two new genera 

 for two species which had been previously described was not 

 surprising. To this Professor Tate has replied in some " Critical 

 Remarks on A. Bittner's ' Echiniden von Australien ' " [Trans. Roy. 

 Soc. S. Australia, vol. xv., pp. 190-194), in which he refuses to accept 

 any one of Bittner's new species, and maintains that these are all 

 founded on specimens as typical of the old species as any that could 

 be selected. He ascribes Dr. Bittner's error to his ignorance of the 

 specimens as they occur in the rocks, a cause which is undoubtedly 

 efficient in many other instances of splitting palaeontology. 



