HEDLEY : ADDITIONS AND AMENDMENTS TO THE SLUG LIST. 3 1 



impaled rook in a cornfield, and frighten, by so shocking an example, 

 later naturalists from inventing more names to be thus gibbeted. 



Every name being but a symbol for the thing it stands for, should 

 be fully explained upon its first appearance. A biological term with- 

 out a definition is like an unstamped coin. Therefore I refuse 

 recognition to empty names like Cystopeltince^ Ckll., and Otoconchince- 

 Ckll., for the reason that I would refuse to accept a blank sheet of 

 paper tendered as a bank note. 



The high standard set up by Mr. Collinge in the appendix, viz. : — 

 that a species undescribed as to its animal and anatomy be refused 

 recognition, is too lofty an ideal to be practicable and too hard to 

 receive general consent. A lesser reform — that recognition be hence- 

 forth withheld from unfigured species — would be more feasible. 



Descending to minor points, I regret that in my note on N. dubia, 

 in the Trans. N. Z. Inst., I did not make my meaning sufficiently 

 clear. I thought and still think that it belongs to " [one of] the 

 preceding species," which one I do not know, though my friend, 

 H. Suter, recognises^, bitentaculata in it. 



I gather from Prof. Cockerell's remarks that (rom/a/ie/ia, Neoja?iella 

 is distinguished by lack of impressed dorsal grooves and by superior 

 size. Now in badly-prepared Janellidte, and the shrivelled head of 

 Neojanellas type indicates a bad preparation, the dorsal grooves are 

 apt to disappear. Indeed, it was the absence of this fugitive feature 

 which induced Humbert to create his Triboniophoms. Maintaining 

 his genus, Mr. Cockerell should logically revive Humbert's, from 

 which, in fact, no published feature divides his own. As to size, the 

 New Zealand Janellce attain far larger dimensions than the text books 

 quote. I have before me an undoubted J. papillata, which, even in 

 alcohol, reaches a length of 55 mm. 



Prof. Cockerell argues that because " In Gray's type oiantipodarum 

 the genital organ protrudes . . . the slug is mature," i.e., full 

 grown. This seems a debatable point. Is artificial protrusion by 

 death, in media which relax the buccal and genital muscles, a proof 

 of sexual maturity ? Is a slug known to be sexually mature, necessarily 

 full grown ? 



Of my " enumeration," Prof. Cockerell says, " Indeed the whole 

 paper contains no new fact, except the description of the interesting 

 variety on p. 161." To defend my friends of the New Zealand 

 Institute from the imputation of having squandered their substance 

 on printing an almost worthless essay, I am driven to claim that, 

 inter alia, I proposed an original classification of the family. In 

 contrast with the usual grouping of the family as instanced by 



