40 New Species of Bryozoa from the Marion Islands, 



It is to be regretted that the system of classification 

 proposed by Dr. Hincks in the introduction to his valuable 

 History of British Marine Polyzoa presents a primary 

 difficulty, and a serious one for Australian observers, in that 

 it allows of no expansion, while failing to provide places for 

 many well-known forms. True, the work is confined to 

 British species ; but in the remarks on classification* the 

 talented writer evidently refers to the whole class, and then 

 proceeds to base his proposed system")* on British species 

 only. The result, unfortunately, is not comprehensive enough 

 to embrace foreign species, and is so arranged as actually to 

 prevent the intervention of fresh families^ without straining 

 and distorting the system. Thus, at the outset of the present 

 paper, I am forced, not unwillingly, to revert to the older 

 system of Busk, which permits the insertion of almost 

 every known form, although arranged many years ago 

 when comparatively little was known of the Biyozoa ; while 

 in the system that Dr. Hincks now proposes to substitute 

 for it no place can be found for three of the five forms 

 described below. Fam. VI., Cellariid^e, seems to offer a 

 home for the Vincularia, but the author has himself since 

 relegated this genus to his Fam. IX., Mtcroporid^eS at the 

 same time observing that V. ornata, Busk, and V. neozelanica, 

 Busk, should be in Fam. VIII., MEMBRANiPORiDiE. Accepting 

 the statement of Dr. Hincks, that " our knowledge of the 

 polyzoa is not yet sufficient to admit of a strictly natural 

 classification, and our arrangement of them must still 

 be to a large extent more or less artificial,"! | it must 

 be apparent that the many reiterated attempts that 

 have been made to make the system only a little 

 less artificial are more likely to cause confusion than 

 to prove beneficial. The time being not yet ripe for a 

 natural system, it would have been better to have adhered 

 to the classical work of Busk as a standard ; improvement 

 without confusion could then be obtained by subdivision and 

 re-arrangement of the more cumbrous families and genera. 



*Brit. Mar. Polyzoa, Introduction, pp. cxviii — cxxxiv. 



f Ibid, pp. cxxxvi — cxli. 



% This difficulty might have been partly obviated by omitting to 

 number the families. 



§J. nn. and Mag. Nat. Hist., Feb., 1881, p. 



I! Brit. Mar. Polyzoa, p. 183. (It is sad to think that this is written thirty 

 years after Mr. Busk said the same thing, using almost similar words, in his 

 British Mvsevm Catalogue, Part II., p. 63.) 



