Mr. L. Reeve on the Recent Terebratulse. 445 



The conclusion to which a persistence in this opinion leads the 

 Professor — namely, that Argiojje, a very special form of Tei'e- 

 hratida, belonging to the temperate waters of the Lusitanian and 

 Celtic provinces of geographical distribution, ranges to New 

 Zealand — is, to my mind, a very serious error. He might as 

 well look for strawberries on the summit of Mont Blanc. 



2. The next conclusion of Prof. Suess to which I take excep- 

 tion is that of including Terebratella in his list of South African 

 types of geographical distribution, — drawn from a statement of 

 English authors, that a single valve in the British Museum, 

 which I found on examination to be a bleached Kraussia I'ubra (a 

 strictly South African type), is a Terebratella. Prof. Suess says, 

 " If Mr. Reeve will re-peruse my paper, he will find the follow- 

 ing passage : ' T. algoensis, Sow. sp. (ranged among Terebratella 

 by Mr. Davidson in Ann. Nat. Hist 1852, p. 368) is only known 

 by one single greater valve ; the generic position is therefore 

 rather doubtful.^ " I particularly noticed the passage ; and it 

 occurred to me that to include the genus Terebratella, on no 

 better evidence than this, in a tabular exposition of types intended 

 for the demonstration of a theory was very unphilosophical. 



3. The errors recorded here appear trifling, but they involve 

 important principles in geographical distribution. My com- 

 plaint, equally against Mr. Davidson and Prof. Suess, is that 

 Corea should be given as the habitat of Kraussia Deshayesii {T. 

 capensis, Ad. & Rv.), when the Cape of Good Hope is so plainly 

 given for it in the original description of Mr. Adams and myself 

 in * Moll. Voy. Samarang.' I found that Mr. Davidson had 

 been misled by a displacement of labels in Mr. Cuming's cabinet, 

 and that Prof, Suess had been misled by Mr. Davidson, But 

 Prof. Suess suspected some mistake when, on tabulating the 

 habitats of the Terebratula, he found Kraussia to be specially a 

 South African type, and remarked, '' some confusion may exist 

 here.'' Why, then, did he not give a preference to the habitat 

 oiiginally recorded in ' Moll. Voy. Samarang ' ? The theoretical 

 difficulties which suggested some confusion should have sug^ 

 gested also that the habitat given by Mr. Arthur Adams, who 

 himself di'cdged the species in situ, was most likely to be the 

 correct one. The displacement of labels in Mr. Cuming's cabi- 

 net has been extremely perplexing, and even led to my accusing 

 Mr. Adams and myself of an error, which has given Prof. Suess 

 the temporary gratification of remarking, "You see that my 

 doubts with reference to Messrs. Adams and Reeve's statements 

 were justified." It happened that Mr, Cuming had got T. 

 abyssicola (the original specimen) also labelled Corea; and I was 

 induced to believe from this circumstance, coupled with the fact 

 of the shell being a Terebi-atulina (a type already represented in 



