170 Miscellaneous. 



bringing up specimens of bottom bad been employed, I wrote as 

 follows : — 



" ' In submitting tbese observations to your notice, I would at 

 once disclaim any desire on my part to impede tbe ordinary duties 

 of the expedition by an unreasonable regard for tbe objects I have 

 in view. I would only request that during tbe remaining portion of 

 the voyage, the circumstances may, if possible, be taken into con- 

 sideration, both as regards the strictly deep-sea soundings and any 

 opportunities for dredging in deep water that may present themselves. 

 Under a conviction that you will give me credit for addressing you 

 with no other desire than that proceeding from extreme anxiety to 

 perform the task entrusted to me satisfactorily, I remain, &c. &c.' 



" It will, I hope, thus become manifest that the comparatively 

 limited number of animals belonging to the higher types which I 

 was enabled to procure was the result of circumstances over which, 

 unfortunately, I could exercise no control. Let me observe, how- 

 ever, that Dr. Wright labours under a serious misapprehension when 

 he states that the Opjhioeomce were the only creatures of a highly 

 organized type which the ' Bulldog ' soundings brought to light from 

 abyssal depths. 



" To the perfect facility with which the dredge may be used, even 

 at the greatest depths, the operations conducted on board the ' Great 

 Eastern ' steamship, several years ago, whilst employed in recovering 

 the lost telegraphic cables, bear ample testimony. It is to be hoped, 

 therefore, that the exploration of the deep-sea bed, in the systematic 

 manner which was proposed by me, in 1863, to the President and 

 Council of the Royal Geographical Society, and received from that 

 body most cordial approbation, may now obtain from Government 

 the liberal encouragement which it deserves. 



" Lastly, will you permit me to point out, with reference to an 

 erroneous idea which has got abroad and been brought to my notice 

 by several friends, that, so far from having ignored the observations 

 of Sir John Boss, in Baffin's Bay, in 1818, and of Sir James Boss, in 

 the Antarctic Seas, in 1848, 1 was the first person to exhume them 

 from the ill-merited oblivion into which they had been allowed to 

 fall, and to accord to these eminent navigators, in my ' North- 

 Atlantic Sea-Bed,' published in 1860, the credit to which they were 

 undoubtedly entitled ? 



" I remain, &c. 



" Kensington, Jan. 3." " G. C. Wallich." 



Note on the Genus Helleria. 

 By the Bev. A. M. Norman, M.A. 



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



Gentlemen, — I should be obliged if you would allow me to cor- 

 rect an error in the characters of the genus Helleria as given by me 

 (Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 4. vol. ii. p. 418, the Number for December). 

 Instead of " Superior antennae slender, much shorter than inferior, 

 with secondary appendage," it should be " Superior antennae &c. 

 without secondary appendage," as will be seen by reference to the 



