424 
NATURE 
genera he wou!ld long 2g» have arrived at the same conclusions. 
it is certain that the soit parts of Astrangia, Cladocora, Oculina, 
and Orbicella are almost identical in all essential points of struc- 
ture and form, as anyone may see by examining the published 
figures of the animals of these genera, though the living animals 
resemble one another much more closely than do the figures. 
Moreover there are species of Astrangia that bud Jaterally and 
grow up into branched forms not unlike Oculina, while the 
species of the latter are always encrusting while young, and 
have marginal buds, like the typical Astrangie, and some 
Oculinze remain permanently nearly in this condition. 
Nor do the internal structure of the corals afford any marked 
and constant characters for their separation. The Ccenenchyma 
is often nearly wanting in Oculinide, though usually charac- 
teristic, and it is sometimes present in Astrangize, even present- 
ing the radiating surface lines so characteristic of Oculina. In 
fact it often requires very careful study to determine whether cer- 
tain specimens belong to Oculina and Astrangia. Such are the 
genera that have ‘‘ nothing in common.” The relations between 
Caryophyllia and Astrangia, through Paracyathus, Phyllangia, 
&c., are sufficiently obvious, and as I have fully discussed all 
these relations elsewhere (Trans. Conn. Acad. I. pp. 512 to 540, 
1869), it is unnecessary to say more upon this point. P 
What Mr. Duncan means by saying that Caryophyllia 
Smithii was first discovered by the Porcupine Expedition in 
the European seas, is not evident, if he means the well-known 
species which has passed under that name in all English works, 
and which Dana illustrates by a figure copied from Gosse’s 
 Actinologia Britannica” (which is the only figure that Mr. Dun- 
can specially criticises). He also finds fault with Dana for say- 
ing that Caryophyllia cyathus is “widely distributed over the 
bottom of the Atlantic, even as far north as the British isles,” 
and tells us that “those unrecognised workers have shown that 
it is not Caryophyllia cyathus but C. clavus which has the 
great horizontal range,” referring of course to the *‘ workers i 
who had described the corals of the Forcupine expedition. But 
in Mr. Duncan’s paper on those corals (Proc. Royal Soc., 1870, 
p. 289) he united both those species, together with C. Syithit 
ani C. dorealis, as mere varieties of one species, and makes a 
long argument to sustain that view, and concludes thus: “I 
have placed the species borealis in the first place, and regard the 
old species C. clavus, C. Smithii, and C. cyathus as varieties of 
it.’’ Dana’s statement was doubtless based on Mr. Duncan’s 
assertions, in the paper quoted, that C. cyathus and C, clavus 
are identical, and the subsequent discovery of C. clavus in the 
Straits of Florida by Pourtales. The error, therefore, if such it 
be, belongs wholly to Mr. Duncan, and his remark that 
‘shad Dana waited a little longer he would have had 
the opportunity of quoting correctly,” was, to say the 
least, quite uncalled for, and unbecoming to him. But the 
peculiar injustice of the critic is, perhaps, best seen in 
his studied omission of any credit to Dana for his extensive 
original observations and investigations upon the structure and 
formation of coral reefs and islands, and his intimations that 
the facts and theories are mostly borrowed. Thus he says, 
‘* The chapters on the structure of coral reefs and islands add 
little to the knowledge which Darwin and Jukes and Hochsteth 
have given us; but Dana’s great powers of illustration enable 
him to reproduce the details with which we are so familiar— 
thanks to these authors—in very engaging forms.” Dana has 
given Darwin full credit and well-merited praise, both in the 
preface and in many places in the body of the work, for his 
accurate observations of facts and discovery of the true mode of 
formation of coral islands ; but he also states the well-known 
fact that his own observations had been made and his report 
written, in 1842, before the publication of Mr. Darwin’s work. 
The report of Mr. Jukes was published still later(1847). Dana’s 
ob ervations were, therefore, wholly original, and relate mostly 
to regions not visited either by Darwin or Jukes. The clapters 
upon this subject are, as they purport to be, mainly a reprint of 
Dana’s original report, with such additions from other and later 
sources as seemed necessary to make the work complete, all of 
which are credited to their original authors. In the preface the 
author says, ‘‘ The observations forming the basis of the work 
were made in the course of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition 
around the world, during the four years from 1838 to 1842.” 
Had Mr. Duncan taken the trouble to examine the original re- 
port, he would have found there the true source of most of the 
facts narrated. The figures of corals were also mostly copied 
from those in the atlas of his report on zoophytes, which were 
originally drawn by Dana himself from Nature, so that it is not 
strange that ‘some of them are very correct representations of — 
Nature.” When the figures are not original, their source has 
invariably been given. The charge that Dana does not give 
due credit to others is simply ridiculous, and in no case more so 
than when he is accused of treating the works of Edwards and 
Haime with ‘‘supreme contempt, inasmuch as he rarely gives 
them credit for their good work,” for,in the list (p. 379) of the 
species of corals described in his great work on Zoophytes, pre- 
pared at his urgent request by the writer, he has adopted, with- 
out hesitation, all the numerons rectifications made by them, as 
well as those made by the writer and others. A considerable 
number of corrections also appear in that list for the first time, 
and it must, therefore, be quoted as the original authority for such 
changes. Nothing less than the complete absence of personal 
vanity and pride, and entire devotion to the advancement of 
scientific truth, for which Prof. Dana is so justly distinguished, 
could have induced him to have published such a list in this 
book, No doubt instances may have occurred in which he has J 
unintentionally overlooked writings of more or less importance, 
If so, he will doubtless make amends in the next edition, The 
authority for well-known facts is not always given, because such 
references would uselessly encumber the book. In other cases, 
where to mention would be only to condemn, such references 
have been intentionally omitted when they would have served 
no useful purpose. Such was the case in respect to the various 
erroneous European classifications, which were not adopted. 
Such was also the case when, in describing the extensive coral 
réefs of Brazil, so wellexplored by Prof. Hartt, and which were 
shown by the writer to consist of corals related to and partly 
identical with those of the West Indies, he does not refer to Mr. 
Dunean’s assertion (Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc. xxiv. p. 30) that 
‘the Orinoco drains a vast tertiary region, and shuts in the 
coral-life of the Caribbean on the south ;” and that ‘‘the Florida 
reefs consist of few species,” when more than forty-five species 
had even then been recorded from them, or more than he ad- 
mits for any existing reefs. Other statements and theories con- 
cerning the recent and fossil corals of the West Indies, in the 
same paper, have become equally absurd, in consequence of the 
recent discoveries of Pourtales, and needed no exposure. His 
assertion that the isthmus of Panama was deeply submerged 
during the Miocene, and again forcibly urged in his criticism of 
Dana, may rest on no better foundation than the other assertions 
just quoted from the same paper, notwithstanding the careless 
way in which he misquotes, as to place of publication, and mis- 
represents, as to the contents, a brief article in opposition to that 
view by the writer. We still Jook in vain for such proofs as 
would be afforded by elevated coral reefs having relations to 
those of the West Indies, but situated on the Pacific side, or 
even upon the higher parts of the isthmus. The well-known 
existence of elevated coral reefs in the East Indies and Polynesia, 
and their presence in the West Indies, known long before Mr, 
Duncan began to write his valuable papers, proves nothing of 
the sort. Whatever relations do exist between the fossil corals 
of the East and West Indies can be easily explained in other 
ways. We think it singular that while certain geologists find it 
necessary to force the Gulf-stream across the isthmus during the 
warm Miocene, others find it quite as important to turn it out of 
the Atlantic, across the isthmus, during the glacial period. Both 
assumptions seem equally gratuitous, and may be opposed by 
numerous facts. A. E. VERRILL 
Animal Instincts 
ALLOW me to add two or three facts to the interesting store 
supplied by your correspondents. 
Some years ago a dog was sent to me at Taunton from Honi- 
ton, distant seventeen miles. It was conveyed in a closed 
hamper and in a covered cart. It escaped from my stable on 
the evening of its arrival, and at 11 o'clock on the following 
morning it was at its home again. The route lay over a ridge of 
steep hills. 
Mr. Robert Fox, of Falmouth, so well known to the scientific 
world, is my authority for the following :—The fishermen of 
Falmouth catch their crabs off the Lizard rocks, and they are 
brought into the harbour at Falmouth alive and impounded in a 
box for sale, and the shells are branded with marks by which 
every man knows his own fish. The place where the box is sunk 
is four miles from the entrance to the harbour, and that is above 
seven miles from the place where they are caught. One ofthese 
boxes was broken ; the branded crabs escaped, and two or three 
days afterwards they were again caught by the fishermen at the 
