224 COCKERELL AND COLLIXGE I CHECK-LIST OF SLUGS. 



forcible than polite " regarding some of my published 

 writings. I have privately communicated to Mr. Hedley 

 my opinion concerning his controversial writings, and we 

 are now on the best of terms, so there is no occasion for 

 further personalities by way of public reply ! 



Yet I desire to assure Mr. Hedley and others, in all 

 sincerity, that I greatly value criticism of my published 

 statements, so far as it helps towards the elucidation of 

 the truth. This must be the attitude of every reasonable 

 naturalist, and if it is proved in any case that an error has 

 been made, the author of the mistake ought to feel obliged 

 to its detector. 



" Human it in est errare," however, and if one attacks 

 a paper with the deliberate intention of making the most of 

 its faults, and it is astonishing how much criticism may be 

 written. To illustrate this, I will take Mr. Hedley's 

 "Enumeration of the Janellida" and point out the actual 

 and probable mistakes and omissions it contains. 



Page 156. Mr. Hedley refers to his paper in An. Mag. 

 N. Hist., p. 169-71, as exposing my errors, and uses other 

 similar language, entirely ignoring my reply, in which 

 I showed that his criticisms were without reasonable 

 foundation. The "Enumeration" was read June 2nd, and 

 as my reply appeared in May, it obviously was not available 

 in Australia when the paper was written. However, on 

 p. 160. Mr. Hedley quotes from my reply on one point, 

 showing that he had it before the " Enumeration " was 

 published. Why then did he not omit his previously 

 written remarks on p. 156, or insert some justification of 

 them ? 



Notwithstanding the language he uses in the "Enumera- 

 tion," Mr. Hedley does not bring forward a single new 

 fact to prove that I was wrong. Indeed, the whole paper 

 contains no new fact, except the description of the 

 interesting variety on p. 161. 



Pages 157-8. My Pseudaneitea is sunk as a synonym 

 (I called it a subgenus) of Ja/iella, and its type species 

 (papillata) is given as a variety of J. bitentaatlata. One 

 can only suppose from this that Mr. Hedley did not know 

 papillata, the more so because the mistake of classing it as 

 a variety is rectified in the recent list of N.Z. Mollusca, in 

 which Mr. Hedley was assisted by Mr. Suter. With regard 



