468 ADAM SEDGWICK. 



scientific work, I regret to be obliged to take up an altogether 

 different position with regard to the personal remarks directed 

 against myself, with which he closes his memoir. 



Pie there devotes a considerable amount of space to a 

 criticism of my first papers on the development of the Cape 

 species. I do not desire to enter into a controversy with 

 Dr. Kennel, nor do I intend to deal with his remarks in 

 detail, but there are one or two points which require notice 

 from me. 



His criticism has two main objects. In the first place 

 he is anxious to prove that there is nothing new in my results : 

 either they were known before, or he has already obtained 

 them, or they are not true. With regard to this, I have only 

 to say, if it please Dr. Kennel to take this view he is quite 

 welcome to do so. His opinion is a matter of no interest to 

 me. The second point is, however, more serious. Dr. Ken- 

 nel's object is apparently to impugn my personal honesty. 

 He accuses me of trying to take credit for discoveries 

 really made by another man. Not only is this charge 

 false, but an examination of Dr. Kennel's works on the de- 

 velopment of Peripatus proves that he knew it to be false 

 when he made it. 



He accuses me of unjustly laying claim to having proved 

 that the mouth and anus of the Peripatus capensis are 

 derived from the blastopore of the embryo. I may, perhaps, 

 be allowed to state the facts concerning this matter. 



Balfour made the discovery that the blastopore of Peripatus 

 capensis became closed in the middle so as to give rise to 

 two openings. The question then arose — a question which 

 was stated in Balfour's memoir on Peripatus (No. 4, p. 255), 

 and again in my paper on the ''Origin of Metameric Segmen- 

 tation'^ (No. 32, p. 55), both of which papers Dr. Kennel was 



l)lunders, which, however, are pardonable, inasmuch as they concern the points 

 which are the most difficult — in fact the only points of any difficulty in the 

 whole of the later stages, and at the same time are the points of the greatest 

 interest — to follow. The blunders relate, as will be seen, to the fate of the 

 ccelom and the origin of the various parts of the body cavity. 



