with a Description of a New Species. 97 



these animals, in order that it might be submitted to the 

 examination of the members of the academy. A commis- 

 sion was appointed to examine this, and the system was 

 approved of. In three different reports, and in an analysis 

 which Baron Cuvier made in 1815, the author was requested 

 to publish his work as soon as possible. This he did in 

 1816, but his system dates many years before that of 

 Lamarck on these organisms had seen the light. Now, 

 though in his subsequent edition of 1821 Lamouroux made 

 some additions and changes, yet the bulk of his generic 

 names and definitions were made before those of Lamarck, 

 and, therefore, he is entirely entitled to priority.* In the 

 first section of his flexible Polypi we have five orders. In 

 the fourth — the Sertularians — we have the following defini- 

 tion : — Sertulariea3. — Polypidoms phytoid, with a distinct or 

 branched stem, rarely articulated, almost always fistular, 

 full of a gelatinous animal substance, in which the lower 

 end of each polypi is fixed in a cell whose position, form, 

 and size is variable. In this order we have the following 

 genera: — Pasythea, Amathia, Nemertesia, Aglaophe7iia, 

 Dynamena, Sertularia, Iclid, Entcdaphora, Clytia, Lao- 

 medea, Thoa, Salacia, Cymodocea, Amphitoita. All these, 

 with the exception of the last and Entalaphora, were named 

 and defined before 1816. The second of them is Amathia, 

 which is thus defined : — 



Amathia*)-. — Polypidom ramose, cellules cylindrical, elon- 

 gate, united in one or many groups. (Extrait d'un memoire 

 sur la classification des Polypiers, coralligenes, non entiere- 

 ment pierreux, presente a la premiere classe de l'lnstitut de 

 France, en Fevrier, 1810, par M. Lamouroux.") But the 

 definition of this particular genus was in Nouveau Bulletin 

 Philomatique, December, 1812. 



* Monsieur Blainville admits this ; and I believe he was the first 

 naturalist who gave Lamouroux the credit of the species which he named — 

 a credit which Lamarck, who used his names, did not acknowledge. In 

 the second edition of Lamarck, Messrs. Edwards and Deshayes, who 

 edited this portion conjointly, did not admit Lamouroux's claims. I believe 

 I am safe in saying that all this portion of the work was done by Milne 

 Edwards, who does not seem to have -examined Lamouroux's work closely. 

 Blainville says : — " This division (Serialaria) of Sertularians has been 

 established by M. de Lamarck and M. Lamouroux, almost at the same time, 

 under different names. I have preferred the name chosen by Lamarck to 

 that of Amathia, employed by Lamouroux, as more expressive and more in 

 harmony with the other genera dismembered from the Sertularians." 

 — Manuel dSActinologie^. 476. He thus quietly passes over the question 

 of priority. 



t Etymology. — One of the Nereids, according to Homer. Query. — From 

 a/xa0os — sands of the shore. 



