Prof. E. Claparéde on the Structure of the Annelida. 341 
results an actual falsification of scientific history, an unconscious 
falsification, no doubt, but one which we must nevertheless re- 
gret. If, in the course of this memoir, I often refer to the 
labours of old observers, this is partly as a protest against the 
ostracism with which they are beginning to be treated. 
However, if M. de Quatrefages has frequently thought that 
he could dispense with the observations of his predecessors and 
contemporaries, it is to his own detriment. How many errors 
which I shall have to combat would have been avoided if the 
author had conscientiously studied the works of Rathke, Delle 
Chiaje, Grube, and many others, if he had taken count of the 
investigations of histologists such as KGélliker, Leydig, &. He 
would not then, as has sometimes occurred to him (with regard 
to the structure of the branchiz, for example), have made science 
retrograde to the period of Pallas. 
This judgment may appear severe, but it will be amply justi- 
fied. Nor do I think that the greatness of the work interdicts 
one from indicating its defects; moreover that just pointed 
out could not be concealed. There is a second upon which I 
cannot keep silence. Why has M. de Quatrefages, whose know- 
ledge of the Annelida is so admirable, permitted himself to be 
induced to describe so many genera and species from individuals 
preserved in spirits in the Paris Museum? He knows better 
than any one else that this kind of work is positively useless, 
and that the Annelida can only be well studied at the seaside 
and by means of living individuals. To describe as he has done 
so many alcoholic varieties is to embarrass science with a caput 
mortuum which will require many years to get rid of *. 
I shall follow step by step in these pages the introduction to 
the ‘Histoire Naturelle des Annelés,’ but neither to reedit it 
nor to criticise it in the style of a Zoilus. But if it is useless to 
go over a multitude of facts which are established in it defini- 
tively, I wish, nevertheless, to dwell upon some points in which 
I cannot agree with the author. I also wish to recall many old 
observations which ought not to be forgotten. In a general 
way I adopt the terminology of M. de Quatrefages ; and when I 
depart from it, it is not without indicating my reasons. 
Regions of the Body and Appendages. 
After much discussion as to the equivalence of the external 
parts of the body in Annelida, most recent authors have adopted 
the nomenclature of M. Grube, who gives the name of “ buccal 
segment” to the segment which bears the mouth, and that of 
* A very competent judge, Prof. Schjédte, of Copenhagen, said to me 
only a few days ago, “ The museums press heavily upon science ”’—a phrase 
only too. true in many cases. 
