80 Miscellaneous. 



be reproached on this score, when it is considered that two thirds 

 at least of the naturalists whose aid he has obtained are Englishmen. 



Geo. J. Alliiax. F. DuCane Godman. 



Geo. Busk. Jos. D. Hooker. 

 William B. CARPEifTER. T. H. Huxley. 



Charles Daravix. St. George Mitart. 



Francis Day. A. M. jN^okman. 



H. E. Dresser. Osbert Salvin. 



W. H. Elower. p. L. Sclater. 



A. H. Garrod. Tweeddale. 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gbntlemex, — As I have read, in a late number of ' Nature,' that a 

 most interestingly signed declaration of approval of Sir C. W. Thom- 

 son's administration will be sent to you for publication, I venture 

 to express my sincere regret that I should be opposed to the opinions 

 it contains. I believe that the best interests of science are served 

 by fostering, and not by depreciating and discouraging, national 

 talent ; and I imagine catholicity in science, in the sense in which 

 it is supposed to be realized by Sir C. Wyville Thomson's action in 

 the matter, to be a mischievous delusion. I would observe that as 

 tbe groups collected by H.M.S. 'Challenger' have very different 

 values in respect of the higher physical and biological questions 

 which it was the primary object of the expedition to investigate, 

 the numerical comparisons urged in Sir Wyville Thomson's favour 

 by the editorial " We " of ' Nature ' are of no force. 



Moreover, as in the great Austrian, German, Erench, and Scan- 

 dinavian expeditions the results were almost without exception 

 worked up at home, the Americans and Sir C. Wyville Thomson had 

 better follow the same common-sense plan. 



Irreconcilable as I am to Sir C. Wyville Thomson's adminis- 

 tration, I wish to express my sorrow if I have written any words 

 which may be personally offensive to him. 



Yours tfcc, 



June 22. 1877. P. Martin Duncan. 



The Locomotor System of Medusce. 



In the seventeenth volume of the present series of this journal 

 (p. 246) we printed, from the ' Proceedings of the Royal Society,' 

 the report of a paper by Mr. Romanes on the above subject. In 

 publishing his memoir in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' Mr. Ro- 

 manes appended to it a postscript referring to an anticipation of his 

 results published by Prof. Eimer of Tiibingen. The latter gentle- 

 man writes to us to complain that no notice of the contents of this 

 postscript appears in our pages ; but this, of course, was impossible, 

 our publication being antecedent to Mr. Romanes's acquaintance with 

 Dr. Elmer's paemoir, which, he informs us, appeared in the ' Sitzungs- 

 berichte der phys.-med, GesellschaftzuWiirzburg,' inDecember 1873. 



