120 Miscellaneous, 



fossils from the Limestone, and indicates those species which occur 

 iu the Limestone of Kildare, the Leptcena-lAxne^towe of Sweden, and 

 Stage F of the East Baltic provinces. As a result of his researches 

 he concludes that the fauna has a thoroughly Ordovician facies ; 

 that it is closely comparable with that of the Limestone of the Chair 

 of Kildare, and of the Lept(vna-L\m.Qs.to\\e, and less closely with 

 that of Stage F of the East Baltic provinces ; that its paloeontological 

 features point to its stratigraphical position being at the base of the 

 Upper Bala, and that it must be regarded as the locally thickened 

 development of a bed which is elsewhere in Great Britain very thin, 

 or entirely absent, or represented by beds having different litholo- 

 gical characters and a different fauna : and that the fauna has 

 certain unique characters which mark ii off from all other known 

 assemblages of fossils in Great Britain. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



" The most pious priority purist" on the Lobster, the Crayfish, and 

 Professor Bell. By the Rev. Thomas E. E. Stebbikg, M.A., 

 F.R.S., F.L.S. 

 Professok Bell, in the ' Annals ' for December 1896, has very 

 obligingly undertaken, for the benefit of " priority-claimers " in 

 general and as a warning to the 'Athenaeum' in particular, to 

 comment on some of the names and dates in my ' History of Crus- 

 tacea.' In his essay there are some pleasing autobiographical 

 touches. He begins by reminding the reader that in 1891, with 

 regard to the name Holothuria, he established a precedent, to be a 

 beacon-light to all zoologists in the present and a rule of conduct 

 for future generations. In the course of his paper, while dealing 

 with questions that are absolutely bibliographical, he naively says 

 " I am no bibliographer " — a remark which might have been set 

 down as a flourish of rhetorical modesty, had it not been surrounded 

 by the corroborative evidence of his general argument. His con- 

 clusion needs no gloss : " I have taken," he says, " a great deal of 

 trouble with this case, and I have a suspicion that if a few more 

 would be equally ' eingchende ' we might speedily give the purista 

 the short shrift I have often wished them." 



The criticism which leads up to this terror-striking sentence 

 must now be examined in detail. " First," says the professor, " as 

 a matter of accuracy in dates and names : on p. 202 of Jllr. Stebbing's 

 work already referred to, ' Nephrops, Leach, 1819,' should have 

 the date corrected to 1814." This, I eagerly admit, is a really 

 meritorious performance on Professor Bell's part. He does not say 

 whence he obtained the date 1814, but it may be inferred that he 

 derives it from the mention of Nejuhropts in Brewster's ' Edinburgh 

 Encyclopaedia,' vol. vii. pp. 398, 400. The date of Leach's article 

 " Crustaceology " in that volume is 1814, or perhaps 1813. Under 

 " Genus XLI. Astacvs," Leach, introducing his own name as if it 

 were that of a stranger, remarks that " In A. gammnrrts and 

 fiuviatilis the external antennje are simple, in norvegicus furnished 

 with a scale at their external base : this last is considered as a 



