A TRIBUTE TO SPENCE BATE 255 
surprising length of the eye-stalks. This reaches its 
maximum in FHretmocaris longicaulis (see Plate XILII.), so 
far as comparative measurements are concerned. ‘The 
specimen, it is true, is less than a quarter of an inch long, 
if the eyes are not counted in, but the length is doubled 
if they are, for these stalked eyes are more than a quarter 
of an inch long, a proportion between the organ of vision 
and the rest of the body which probably no other animal 
in the world can boast of. 
In quitting at this point the assistance of Mr. Spence 
Bate’s ‘ Report on the Challenger Macrura,’ it is right to pay 
a tribute to the vast labour which that work must have 
involved, and to the great ability shown in it although 
amidst many inaccuracies and much want of method. 
Unfortunately the nomenclature which Mr. Spence Bate 
adopted makes it sometimes more difficult to read his 
descriptions than those written in a foreign tongue. He 
formed the grand conception of giving one invariable 
name to each part of a crustacean, as it might appear 
under every possible modification, throughout the whole 
class. or the comparative anatomist no scheme could be 
more valuable, but for the students of different orders 
there is always the chance that such an arrangement 
will be irritating and repellent. The name that may 
commend itself as obvious and natural in one group 
becomes wholly inappropriate in another. Supreme skill 
might override many difficulties by inventing terms of 
great simplicity, not inappropriate to any group by being 
especially appropriate to none. But simplicity seems to 
have been the very last thing considered in Spence Bate’s 
terminology, and though such words as phymacerite, 
psalistoma, and stylamblys, may help to curtail the length 
of descriptions, they are only too likely also to curtail the 
number of those that read them. 
