148 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[July, 1903. 



identified In' Hoek witli Ammothea pyowgonoides, Quatre- 

 fages, 1845. His Achelia Lvvls from Polperro is transfeiTed 

 to Ammothea by Sars. His Achelia hispida, from the 

 same locality, remains unrecognized. His Phoxicliiliduim, 



Ammolhea ecMnata (ffodge) J. From Sars. 



virescens, also found in Cornwall, is assigned to AnopJo- 

 dactylns (the synonym of Anaphia) by Sars, who fm-ther 

 makes Hodge's Pallene pygmxa, from the Durham coast 

 and Plymouth, a synonym of Krijyer's Anaphia petiolata. 

 Of the three species of Nymphon, Kioyer's mixtum and 

 lonyilarse were taken by Hodge himself on the Durham 

 coast, and Strom's murimim by Norman, who in his 

 Shetland dredging report (Brit. Assoc. Eep. for 1868) 

 refers to the capture as "a single specimen, the only 

 known British example, dredged in 1861 in 80 fathoms, 

 40 miles east of Whalsey Skerries." In 1867 Hodge added 

 a new species, N. rnhrum, to our fauna from the coast of 

 Durham. 



In regard to the still vague genera and species which 

 O. G. Costa introduced in his quaint and quaintly named 

 Italian treatise, " Microdoride mediterranea," we must be 

 content to name his Plafychelus sardonicus, his Alcinous 

 vulgaris, his Alcinous megacuphnlus, and to borrow 

 sympathetically his quotation from Pliny, "In his tam 

 pavvis, atque tam uullis quae ratio, quanta vis, quam 

 inextricabilis sapientia ! " which is as good as saying that 

 in these little Sea-spindles, these insignificant Nobodies, 

 there is such plan and power displayed as speak of a 

 Wisdom past our finding out. 



Little work has been done of late in Great Britain and 

 Ireland on the Pvenogonida except bv E. J. Miers ("Ann. 

 Nat. Hist.," 1875; "Phil. Trans.," ISVil; " Zool. of H.M.S. 

 ' Alert.' " p. 323, 1884), and G. H. Carpenter, the latter of 

 whom in 1892 (" Proc. R. Dublin Soc," Vol. 7) founded the 

 genus Farnpallene to receive Hoek's Pallene anstraliensis 

 and a new species, P. haddonii. On the other hand, in 

 English have appeared several works of first-rate im- 

 portance. Thus the " Challenger " report, by Dr. P. P. C. 

 Hoek, in 1881, is a monograph teeming with instruction 

 in our dialect, not in the author's native Dutch. The 

 treatises by E. B. Wilson (1878, 1881), and T. H Morgan 

 ( 1891 ) do credit to our language on the other side of the 

 Atlantic. Dr. Meinert, of Copenhagen, in his excellently 

 illustrated memoir (" Ingolf Exp.," 1899) addresses us in 

 our own tongue, not in Danish. G. 0. Sars, in 1891, sends 

 forth from Christiania his pre-eminently valuable dis- 

 cussion of the group in parallel columns of English and 

 Dano-Norwegian, supplementing both, after his manner, 

 by that fine language of the pencil with which printed 

 words cannot easily compete. In the works mentioned 



will lie found long lists of literature, too long for repro- 

 duction here, or for critical analysis. Only exhausted 

 limits of space indeed can excuse the omission of Lilljeborg, 

 Hansen, Harwell, Ives, Ortmann, Adlerz, Caullery, Pocock, 

 and others* from the present survey. Much has been said of 

 mistakes and obscurities, yet scarcely a page can be 

 studied without finding in it something useful and sugges- 

 tive. If we pride ourselves on having valued works 

 written by foreigners in our own vernacular, we have not 

 a monopoly of such distinction. The Italian Philippi 

 writes in German. The Russian Schimkewitsch writes in 

 French and publishes at Rome (" Atti del Lincei,"- Ser. 4, 

 Vol. VI., 1890). Hoek's " Nouvelles f;tudes sur les 

 Pycnogouides," 1884, as the title implies, is written in 

 French. This very valuable essay includes several 

 pregnant observations on Dr. Dohrn's fine German^ mono- 

 graph of the Mediterranean Pycnogonids. In the same 

 way the Norwegian monograph by Sars not less usefully 

 discusses the systematics of Hoek's " Challenger " report, 

 and the whole series of works, throwing light each upon 

 each, are gradually opening the way for well-ordered 

 classification and luminous understanding. In his little 

 "epoch-making" essays of 1876, 1877, the Italian Cavanna 

 modestly explains that when he had made his discovery 

 about the sexes in this trilie he could scarcely credit him- 

 self till he found that Dujardin, in 1849, and Semper, in 

 1874, had practically made the discovery, without having 

 the courage to believe it. So it is in this small field, as 

 Dryden says of a larger one, that " great contemporaries 

 whet and cultivate each other, and mutual borrowing and 

 commerce make the common riches of learning, as it does 

 of civil government." 



In the retrospect now concluded, an endeavour has been 

 made to take note of all the genera, good , bad and indiiferent, 

 that have hitherto been set up. To have distinguished 

 all the species would have taken far too long, and to have 

 named them all without distinction would have been more 

 tedious than useful. Some details of organization have 

 been left unnoticed as too technical for the general reader. 

 For naturalists who make the ocean their playground it 

 should be satisfactory to know that the Sea-spindles are 

 obtainable from its tide-marks downwards to three miles 

 below the surface. In our islands they are not scarce. 

 We can with some assurance boast of ten genera, and 

 twice that number of species. In the milder Mediter- 

 ranean climate their abundance is strongly attested. They 

 flourish in the arctic regions. We have reason to be 

 sanguine that they will yield good results to antarctic 

 exploration. They are known from tropical waters. From 

 all the coasts of Europe, from the seas of Asia and 

 Australasia, of South Africa, and of America, both North 

 and South, species have been obtained, so that the oceanic 

 distribution of the tribe may be described as cosmopolitan. 

 In natural history its past has surely not been un- 

 iuteresting, and, one mav veutiu'e to think, it has a future. 



MODERN COSMOGONIES. 



By Agnes M. Clerke. 



III.— THE NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS VARIED AND 

 IMPROVED. 



" Restorations " often go very far. Things may be 

 improved beyond recognition, nay, out of existence. Sj 

 it has happened to the Nebular Hypothesis. Slnt nominie 

 uinhra^ The name survives, but with connotations in- 

 definitely diversified. The original theme is barely recalled 



• Prof. A. E Verrill instituttM the subgenus Ammothetta, in 

 " Trans. Connecticut Acad.," Vol. 10, 1900. 



