150 



Miscellaneous. 



as in many other genera, but is soft and spongy in its general 

 character, and more hke the iris in mammaUa than in birds. 



As it is desirable to limit myself to those particular structures 

 which are concerned in tlie accommodation of the eye for distance, 

 deferring for the present certain general conclusions which fresh 

 observations are required to confirm, I shall leave to the considera- 

 tion of the naturalist the subjoined facts arranged in a tabulated form, 

 and which appear to me to be applicable to the explanation of the 

 habits of the birds by anatomical peculiarities. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



On the name Tethya and its Varieties of Spelling. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &c. 

 Lamaeck established the genus Tethya in the first volume of the 

 'Ann ales du Museum' and in the 'Hist. Nat. des Anim. sans Vert.' 

 ii, p. 384 (1816). As usual in the latter work he uses the French 

 generic name Tethie and prints it in capitals, and the Latin generic 

 name Tethia in common Roman characters : but the i is evidently an 

 oversight or misprint ; for to each of the six species he gives the name 

 of Tethya, and it is so in the second edition. This name so written 

 has been almost universally followed. 



Dr. Johnston, in his ' British Sponges,' p. 81, writes it *' Tethea, 

 Lamarck," but quotes Tethia or Tethya, Lam., les Thethyes, Cuv., and 

 Tethium, Blainv., and observes it is not the " Tethea of Pliny," and 

 that Bohadsch has given the name of Tethyum to the TeiZiJsof Linnaeus. 



Dr.Bowerbank,in his 'British Sponges' (i.p.181 and ii. p. 6), adopts 

 Dr. Johnston's name of Tethea, but quotes it as Lamarck's, probably 

 from Johnston. In the next page he quotes Milne-Edwards's edition 



