COLLINGE: STRUCTURE AND AFFINITIES OF EUROPEAN SLUGS. 113 



ON THE NOMENCLATURE OF VELATES 

 SCHMIDELIANUS. 



By B. B. WOODWARD, F.G.S., F.R.M.S., 



British Museum, Loudon. 



I regret equally with Mr. Newton the disappearance from the list 

 of the name Velates scffirtidelianus : alas ! it was the very same laws 

 of priority which he professes to champion, but so manifestly does 

 not understand, that compelled the sacrifice. If anyone will take 

 the trouble to turn to the early volumes of Martini and Chemnitz 

 they will at once see that the binomial system is completely ignored 

 therein, and it is only by chance that such an allusion in the text as 

 that quoted by myself and referred to by Mr. Newton is made ; 

 moreover the descriptions, as he rightly terms them, are in one type : 

 the first words read straight on with the rest, and there is no heading 

 nor are there italics as misquoted by Mr. Newton in his note. It is 

 manifest to any reasonable person that one cannot pick out a chance 

 phrase in the text and ignore the fact that in the whole of the rest of 

 the volume the authors obviously still adhered to pre-Linnaean 

 methods, and were " wont to indicate a species not by a name 

 comprised in one word, but by a definition which occupied 

 a sentence," a method distinctly condemned in the Rules of 

 Zoological Nomenclature as set forth in the British Association 

 Reports for 1865 (p. 30). 



It was only after careful deliberation, and with the advice of 

 Mr. Edgar A. Smith and other competent naturalists, that the 

 change in name was reluctantly made. In conclusion, I feel it my 

 duty to warn the Law of Priority against Mr. Newton, who, in the 

 guise of an over-zealous friend, has of late succeeded in doing much 

 to damage the character of that otherwise respectable regulation. 



ON THE STRUCTURE AND AFFINITIES OF SOME 

 EUROPEAN SLUGS. 



By WALTER E. COLLINGE, 



Mason College, Birmingham. 



From an experience gained by the examination of an exceedingly 

 large number of British and Continental slugs, during the past three 

 years, I am more than ever convinced of the fallacy of separating 

 species on fine distinctions in any one system of organs, or from the 



