on the Polyzoa. 91 



Professor Smitt, in his later writings, has dismembered them 

 and distributed the species with which he deals amongst other 

 groups *. 



After all, however, it matters little that the early expositors 

 of the new systematic views did not see their way as clearly 

 at first as they did subsequently. It may be admitted that 

 they did not at once entirely renounce the principles " dont 

 leur jeunesse a dte impregnee " (Jullien) ; but this will hardly 

 be held to justify the summary way in which Dr. Jullien 

 rejects their authority and supersedes their work. In the new 

 classification of the Cheilostomata which he has proposed 

 the whole of the existing families have disappeared with two 

 exceptions f ; the familiar names which have long held a 

 place in the literature of the class have been swept away and 

 a new coinage has taken their place. 



This step, to say the least of it, must be accounted prema- 

 ture, and in the interest of science I venture to think is to be 

 regretted. 



Dr. Jullien himself has entered upon a course of investiga- 

 tion which may throw light on the minute structure of the 

 Polyzoa and possibly on the true basis of a natural system. 

 His interesting studies of the anatomy of the Cheilostomatous 

 forms may be expected to disclose the significance of struc- 

 tural elements of which at present we know but little, and so 

 guide us in our search for the evidences of natural affinity. 

 It would certainly have been more satisfactory to receive 

 from him a new system at the close of an extended course of 

 such research rather than in its early stages. 



Pergens and Meunier have emphasized the importance of 

 anatomical and embryological research as a means of arriving 

 at a natural classification, and are of opinion that the able 

 investigators who have followed these lines of study have 

 failed so far to solve the problem, because their researches 

 have stopped short at the formation of the primary zocecia. 

 It may be so, but it is more probable that such studies may 

 throw light on the affinities of the Class and the true basis of 

 its higher divisions rather than on the constitution of family 

 and generic groups, which must rest chiefly on the more appa- 

 rent zocecial characters. 



* Comparing Escharoides rosacea and Retepora marsupiata, he places 

 them both in the same genus, and remarks: — " The difference in the form 

 of the colonial growth cannot beof any generical value" (Flor. Bryoz. pt. 2, 

 p. 68). I can find nothing to substantiate Dr. Jullien's statement respecting 

 Smitt (''Note sur une nouvelle division &c," op. eit. p. 2) that in his 

 work on the Floridan Bryozoa " he relapses into the old errors." 



t The Ceida? of d'Orbigny and .'Eteidas of Hiucks. 



