340 Prof. E. Claparede on the Structure of the Annelida. 



conereis Edivardsii, I have described* a Evmicean from the shores 

 of Normandy, which M. de Quatrefages refers to the genus 

 Notocirrusf, distinguished from Lwmbriconereis by the existence 

 of a dorsal cirrus on each foot. Now the Annelide in question 

 has the feet of a true Lumbriconereis ; and I have nowhere de- 

 scribed or figured a dorsal cirrus. Here, also, the mistake of 

 M. de Quatrefages arises from his having neglected the text, 

 and attended only to the plate. In this, by a mistake of the 

 the eugraver, the foot is represented reversed; and the little 

 terminal ligulet which occurs in all species of Lumbriconereis 

 must, no doubt, have been taken, in this position, by the French 

 zoologist for the dorsal cirrus of a Notocirrus. Nevertheless a 

 little care ought to have led to the recognition of the reversal of 

 position, especially by M. de Quatrefages, who has not allowed 

 himself to be led into error by the plates of Audouin and Milne- 

 Edwards, in which the feet of Lumbriconereis are also repre- 

 sented reversed. 



I have cited these two examples because they concern myself; 

 but I have not been worse treated than many others, and I 

 shall too frequently have to point out analogous mistakes in the 

 course of this memoir. Nevertheless I repeat, with a little cir- 

 cumspection, the ' Histoire des Anneles ' might be employed as 

 a very useful guide. 



On the other hand, I cannot admit that the ' Histoire des 

 Anneles ' represents the present state of science from an anato- 

 mical and physiological point of view. We owe to M. de Qua- 

 trefages a multitude of important observations upon this subject. 

 No one has studied the Annelida so persistently as he ; no one, 

 especially, has had under his hands so great a number of types, 

 or studied them from such varied points of view. Elsewhere I 

 have already paid, in the most formal manner, my tribute of 

 admiration to these investigations J. Unfortunately, in the 

 strength of his own numerous and profound researches, the author 

 of the ' Histoire Naturelle des Anneles ' has too often forgotten 

 that he had predecessors, and that some of his contemporaries 

 were exploring with ardour the same field as himself. No doubt, 

 in a work which is only an epitome of science, history cannot 

 occupy a great space, and the author is obliged to place himself 

 in an entirely objective point of view. But this is not what M. 

 de Quatrefages has done, whose personality is always put for- 

 ward, even in the narration of facts known twenty or thii'ty 

 years before the first scientific efforts of the author. Hence 



* Beobacht. &c. p. 58. 

 t Hist. Nat. des Anueles, tome i. p. 376. 



X See ' Glanures zootomiques parmi les Annelides de Port Vendres.' 

 Geneva, 186^. 



