3 



In which of the great divisions of the animal kingdom does Dr. Gray place 

 it, or did he place his Australian bone in 1870 ? 



Courtesy and fairness suggest that as he printed it in the Catalogue of Pen- 

 natulidce, it should be conceded, as I have written, in a previous paper, " that, 

 in his mind, the balance of reasoning tends in that direction." 



Admitting this latter, what then ? The Australian bone upon which rests 

 his genus Osteocella is described by Dr. Gray as being " thick, about eleven 

 inches long, tapering at each end." Subsequently he has received one of the 

 stalks, or axes, of what I have named Verrillia Blakei; of the latter, he says it 

 is " long, slender, about sixty-four inches long, attenuated at the base, and very 

 much attenuated and elongated at the other end." " Mr. Carter " examined 

 both of the bones referred to, microscopically, and " finds them " to " present 

 the same horny structure," etc. An examination with acid was made, but as it 

 would be rather difficult to comprehend in what way generic or specific deter- 

 minations within any related groups could be determined by acid, this test may 

 be allowed to pass. 



The reference of Verrillia to Osteocella as a synonyme, or otherwise, must rest 

 on this microscopic test, as the soft investing portion of the animal, the perfect 

 or complete polyp or polypidom of the Australian form, to which the bone, if 

 the axis of an alcyono'id, belongs, and upon which Dr. Gray made his genus Os- 

 teocella, has not, as yet, been seen by him, or brought under scientific observa- 

 tion. He cannot aver, because he does not know, but that it may be a species 

 which belongs to some genus already described, or that it may properly fall in 

 as a sub-genus of some of the genera of Alcyonoids previously known ; he does 

 not know but what its relationship may be nearer to any of the other groups 

 than to Pavonaria. No description sufficiently accurate to be worthy of con- 

 sideration can be made from the axial rods or bones alone, of this class of ani- 

 mal forms, nor can species be satisfactorily determined without the fleshy por- 

 tion ; nor, in the present state of our knowledge, can the microscope determine 

 these points. 



In his genus Osteocella, which, it must be borne in mind, rests solely on the 

 naked Australian bone or axis, which he says is " thick," " eleven inches long," 

 as published in the British Museum Catalogue of Pennatulid/z, no information 

 is furnished as to the soft investing portion, for the very good reason that it had 

 not been seen by him ; yet in the number of Nature last quoted, he speaks of 

 '• the complete polyp-mass," thus clothing his west Australian Osteocella with 

 the fleshy covering of the west North- American Verrillia. So much for his 

 generic synonymy. As to the species, the North-American form, as referred to 

 by him, could not be definitely placed, by anything written by Dr. Gray prior 

 to the date of my description. 



This is a matter, not of personal pride, but of scientific accuracy ; and scien- 

 tific n aturalists should not lose sight of, or be diverted from, this sine qua non, 

 or palliate individual idiosyncracies which involve integrity, and which should 

 not be allowed to pass without challenge or comment. 



