56 NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan.. 



by year in a form available for the use of the scientific public, adding 

 definitions, too often forgotten by the original authors, and derivations 

 when we have been able to discover them. It is not likely that our 

 list for this year is complete. We have purposely taken no notice of 

 terms dealing only with limited groups of animals, and we have 

 not thought it necessary to include every possible combination of 

 terms with prefixes and suffixes suggested by authors. Thus in his 

 paper on Bioplastology (3), Professor Hyatt also subdivides each of 

 the stages of Ontogeny, from Nepionic ( = Brephic, Buckman and 

 Bather) to Gerontic, into three substages, which are distinguished, on 

 Buckman's suggestion, by the prefixes aita- (up towards), meta- 

 (in common with), paya- (beyond). Thus the Gerontic stage, instead 

 of having two substages, Clinologic and Nostologic (Hyatt), or 

 Catabatic and Hypostrophic (Buckm. and Bath.), will have three, viz., 

 Anagerontic, Metagerontic, and Paragevontic. Professor Hyatt also 

 proposes to apply Haeckel's physiological terms, or his own modifica- 

 tions of them, to Phylogeny, by using the prefix phyl- ; thus, 

 Phylanaplasis , Phylometaplasis, and Phyloparaplasis. 



Besides these, other terms have doubtless escaped our notice, 

 and we shall be glad of any additions. Authors would also confer a 

 favour by sending us, in future, a note of any new terms they may 

 propose. 



We cannot conclude without protesting against a tendency, far 

 too prevalent, of introducing these and similar terms, originally 

 invented for the benefit of specialists, into works of a more popular 

 description. This is not the way to popularise science. Possibly the 

 writers think that long words give an air of learning. We believe 

 that they tend to mystify both writer and reader, substituting sound 

 for sense, and, too often, fancy for fact. It was to politicians, not to 

 scientists, that words were given for the purpose of concealing 

 thought ; yet we fear that some day the latter also may find that they 

 have floated too far into the clouds of unintelligibility, and may be 

 brought back to earth only to repeat, in the words of the man they 

 shouted " Hi ! " at, in the Hunting of the Snark — 



" I said it in Hebrew — -I said it in Dutch — 

 I said it in German and Greek ; 

 But I wliolly forgot (and it vexes me much) 

 That English is what you speak ! " 



List of New Terms Proposed in the Natural Sciences 

 DURING 1893. 



Ahorad and aboran, converse of " orad " and " oran." (Schulze.) 

 Astrokinetic {ua-rpov, a star ; Kii/r/T6Ko's, setting in motion), applied 



to phenomena of motion of centrosomes of cells. (Ryder.) 



Astrosphere i{a<TT pov, star; cr^aT/Da, sphere), improved term for 



"attraction sphere," a phenomenon of cell-division. (Strasburger.) 



