Ohituanj—Br. Walter Flight, F.E.S. 575 



I must now explain ray use of the term Ungulata. Lamarck in 

 his Philosophie zoologique, of which the first edition was published 

 in 1809, distinguished the mammalia into Esongules, Amphibies, 

 Ongules, and Onguicules. Of these, the Ongules is a natural division 

 which has been adopted by Cuvier, Owen (Odontography) and many 

 other zoologists, and has been current in zoological literatui'e for 

 half a century before it was applied by modern authors to a different 

 and more restricted group (my Diplarthra), in opposition, as I 

 believe, to the law of priority. In fact the distinction of the mam- 

 malia into Unguiculata, Ungulata, and Mutica was employed by 

 Linneeus in the twelfth edition of the Systema Naturae, about a cen- 

 tury earlier than the term Ungulata as preferred by Mr. Lydekker."^ 

 And for placental gyrencephalous mammalia this classification is as 

 natural as any one which has been proposed, and is the only one 

 available for palaeontologists. In concluding, I refer to another 

 attempt at change of a long-standing and generally-accepted name 

 by modern authors. I refer to the name Batrachia, which it is 

 sought to replace by the term Amphibia. Although the latter 

 is the better name, it has not the claim of priority by a half century 

 at least. Although the early definitions were imperfect, the contents 

 of the class were then the same as now. The division Batrachia, 

 used by Lamarck and Cuvier, is uniformly employed in the herpeto- 

 logical literature of the last half century, except by a few German 

 authors (^e.g. Wagler), who combined them with the Eeptilia in one 

 division under the name Amphibia. Not only has the name Am- 

 phibia no claim on the ground of priority, but the diverse uses to 

 which it has been put also render its use undesirable. 

 Philadelphia, Oct. 30, 1885. E. D. CoPE. 



ojBXTUj^:Rizr. 



WALTER FLIGHT, D.Sc.(LOND.), F.R.S., &c. 



Born 21st January, 1841 ; Died 4th November, 1885. 



The close of this year has witnessed the termination of another 

 bright and promising life, ended all too soon for the hopes and 

 expectations of his many friends. 



Walter Flight was the son of William P. Flight, of Winchester, 

 in which city he was born on the 21st January, 1841. He was 

 sent, after a period of pupilage at home, to Queenwood College, 



1 There is one note-worthy exception to this argument, viz. where Mr. Lydekker 

 remarks that " Archcenoclon appears to us to be a form not improbably connecting 

 the bunodont ungulates like Elotherium (with which it has been classed) with the 

 unguiculate mammals," etc. Now this proposition is in opposition to theoretical and 

 actual mammalian phylogeny, as I have remarked in the American Naturalist, 1884, 

 p. 718. It is impossible for any Artiodactyle mammal like Elotherium to have 

 direct connection with an unguiculate. The genealogical line must pass backwards 

 through a taxeopod line, and then downward into or through the bimotherian, to 

 complete such a connection. 



