Alleged Gases of Misrepresentation. 481 



the thought that I am not the only person who has failed to 

 grasp the meaning of these learned rather than lucid writers. 

 At the same time, on carefully comparing my account with 

 their writings in the light of their recent criticism, I must 

 confess, at the risk of exposing my dulness, that I cannot see 

 very much to alter. I quite understand that the present 

 ideas of Messrs. Wachsmuth and Springer are by no means 

 those which I have attributed to them ; but the question is 

 not what they think, or even what they thought (or think 

 they thought), but what they said, and what could be logically 

 inferred from their statements. Let us then take their objec- 

 tions in order. 



On p. 322 of my paper I gave certain extracts from their 

 paper " On Hybocrinus, Hoplocrinus and Baerocrinus " *, 

 and I said, " In this paper then the authors consider the 

 ' azygos ' plate to be an independent morphological element 

 of the dorsal cup, not a modified radial." On this Messrs. 

 Wachsmuth and Springer remark (p. 389) " We know of no 

 passage in that paper from which Bather would be entitled to 

 draw any such inferences ... he should have quoted the 

 exact language, and give [sic] the page where it occurs." 

 Let it be noted that my statement was introduced as an 

 inference from various passages, and that I did quote the 

 exact language of those passages so far as seemed necessary. 

 Now, however, I will quote more fully from their paper on 

 Hybocrinus &c, giving the page, and will, for the benefit of 

 Messrs. Wachsmuth and Springer, indicate the various stages 

 of my argument. 



P. 376, footnote. " In Revision I, pp. 65-75, we considered 

 the combined right posterior radial and the azygous plate in 

 DendrocriniiS) which in their position and proportions 

 resemble the right posterior radial in Cyathocrinus, to be a 

 compound radial. At that time we thought that the second, 

 the so-called azygous plate, in Dendrocrinus, Homocrinus, 

 and in the Cyathocriniche generally, was a modified radial, 

 and also that the anal tube, possibly, had been developed from 

 an arm. Upon these points we were evidently in error." 



Conclusion. Wachsmuth and Springer think that the 

 " azygous " plate in the Cyathocrinidaj is neither a modified 

 radial nor part of a compound radial. 



What then is it ? 



P. 368, lines 8-12. "... we hope to prove further on 

 that the plates which constitute the azygous side, both special 



* Amer. Journ. Sci. [3] xxvi. pp. 305-377, Newhaven, Nov. 1883. 



