482 THE BLOOD-CORPUSCLES OF THE ANNELIDES. 



slightly transposed, so as to take their place between the next 

 'and' and the word ' communicates.' Of the adequacy of this 

 argument any conscientious critic can judge without troubling 

 himself to consider the context in which the passage in question 

 stands, or the other two portions of my book in which the subject 

 is treated, and indeed without special knowledge of the matter at 

 all. To proceed synthetically : I will add that anybody who will 

 write the statement out in lines of eight words each or thereabouts, 

 omitting the words 'and Branchiobdella 3 from those lines, and will then 

 add them in his MS. with the customary Greek lambda-A-like note 

 placed interlinearly, will be amused to see how easily the supple- 

 mented words come within the grasp of the embracing brackets. 

 Unfortunately, even for my own satisfaction, I allowed my MS. 

 of ' Forms of Animal Life' to be destroyed only quite recently ; the 

 printed proofs, happily, I still preserve. Commas and brackets are, 

 it is true, not anatomical or natural history facts, but they are facts 

 of human history, and if looked at carefully, will furnish a scientific 

 observer with as sure a clue to the interpretation of a man's 

 intention as the observation of the actions of one of the lower 

 animals will do as to the interpretation of its meaning on any par- 

 ticular occasion. 



Having thus, in the first place, appealed to the judgment of 

 scientific men of every class — that is to say, to the judgment of 

 all fair-judging men who will take the pains to attend to all the 

 circumstances of a very small question — I will, in the second place, 

 adduce some evidence, the appreciation of which does require some 

 special knowledge of the subject, being based upon a consideration 

 of the passage, in connection with its context and its obvious 

 meaning. Anybody who will read that part of my chapter on the 

 sub-kingdom Vermes, from p. cxxii. to cxxxi., which relates to the 

 * class Annulata proper,' will see that on p. cxxix., the page con- 

 taining the passage which Professor Lankester has taken for his 

 text, the word 'Annulata' is used no less than four times, and 

 obviously and expressedly as inclusive of the Discophora. The 

 likeness indeed of Branchiobdella to the Naidea had been hinted at 

 by both Grube in 1851 ('Die Familien der Anneliden,' p. 115), 

 and Claparede in 1868 (' Bibliotheque Univ. de Geneve,' N.S. xxii. 

 p. 348); but no one had in 1870 proposed, as Gegenbaur has sub- 

 sequently (Grundriss, 1878, p. 134), to consider Branchiobdella one 



