550 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 669 



tion the facts regarding Holothuria Linnaeus, 

 1758, as given by Gill and Poche. There is no 

 question that the ignoring of these facts has 

 placed us, who are specially interested in 

 echinoderms, in a serious dilemma. Either we 

 must refuse to follow the International Code 

 or we must attempt, not only to substitute an 

 unfamiliar name for the familiar Rolothuria, 

 and introduce a series of regrettable changes 

 into the nomenclature of ascidians and 

 echinoderms, but we must undertake to replace 

 the colloquial English " holothurian " with 

 some other term. Of these two evils it seems 

 to me that the former is decidedly the lesser, 

 and at the expense of consistency I propose to 

 continue to call "sea-cucumbers," holothu- 

 rians. Of course, if the International Com- 

 mission on Nomenclature, in its proposed list 

 of genera to be unchangeably adopted, assigns 

 Holothuria to the ascidians rather than to the 

 echinoderms, I shall not stand out against that 

 decision, but meantime I shall sincerely hope 

 that they will agree that an exception to the 

 application of the code is wiser than a con- 

 sistency which involves such difficult, one 

 might almost say impossible, changes in 

 nomenclature. 



And I am confirmed in this attitude by cer- 

 tain facts either ignored or overlooked by Gill 

 and Poche. Aldrovandus and other pre-Lin- 

 nasan writers used Holothuria in the com- 

 monly accepted sense, as have all writers since 

 1766. J^ger in 1833 refers to the tivelfth edi- 

 tion of the " Systema Naturae " as the first in 

 which true holothurians are included in the 

 genus and he virtually bases his revision of 

 the genus on that edition. Ear more im- 

 portant than this, however, is the fact that if 

 we assign Holothuria to the ascidians, it is 

 by no means easy to decide what name shall 

 replace it for sea-cucumbers. Eortunately for 

 euphony's sake, it almost certainly will not be 

 Bohadschia, as both Gill and Poche assert. A 

 hasty survey of the literatvire between 1760 

 and 1830 shows that the case is quite involved. 

 Mr. Austin H. Clark has called my attention 

 to the fact that a very plausible argument may 

 be made for Holothusia Barbut, 1783, Plate 6 ! 

 Incidentally it should be remarked that there 



are many zoologists (Drs. Gill and Eisher 

 among them) who will hold that Holothuria 

 is properly a siphonophoran genus, and not 

 ascidian, as Poche claims. Careful considera- 

 tion of all the facts satisfies me that the at- 

 tempt to radically change the usage of such 

 familiar names as Holothuria, Actinia and 

 Salpa can only make confusion worse con- 

 founded and, until an international congress 

 of zoologists has voted that this shall be done, 

 I for one shall continue to use the names in the 

 commonly accepted sense. 



Hubert Lyman Clark 

 Museum of Compaeative Zoology, 

 Cambridge, Mass., 

 September 28, 1907 



ERRORS IN tower's " AN INVESTIGATION OF EVOLU- 

 TION IN CHRYSOMOLID BEETLES OF THE 

 GENUS LEPTINOTARSA " ' 



In reading over this work, I have noticed 

 a few minor typographical errors and one 

 rather more important biological misstatement 

 or misconception in regard especially to one 

 species of the group, all of which, however, 

 do not affect the work as a whole. The biolog- 

 ical misstatement or misconception is unfor- 

 tunate, as it is founded on innumerable ob- 

 servations, and thus would tend to indicate 

 carelessness in this respect on the part of the 

 author. But I have no doubt that it was due 

 rather to an oversight. 



The typographical errors will be stated first: 



Page 53, H 2, line 3, specimens = species. 



68, 3, 4, 32 = 22. 



166, 2, 28, how is repeated. 



169, 3, 1, 3, Mstonic ^ historic. 



253, 2, 7, haiitat = habit. 



294, 2, 3, ohers = others. 



In writing of the ontogeny of larval color 

 patterns on page 147, Dr. Tower directly im- 

 plies three larval instars to Leptinotarsa sig- 

 nuticollis Stal, and indirectly so to the species 

 diversa Tower and undecemlineata Stal. On 

 the next page, and those following, the same 

 fact is implied in regard to the other species 

 of the group, including the common decem- 



* Publication No. 48, Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, 1906. 



