200 Correspondence — Mr. W, Carruthers. 



Nicholson says plainly that he used " gonophore instead of gono- 

 theca, to signify the external bell-shaped ovarian vesicle of the 

 Sertulariadas." He also quotes Greene ' in support of his posi- 

 tion, and triumphantly adds that his quotation is but one of 

 many similar statements ! Had he pursued his examination of 

 Greene's Manual a little further, he would have found, at page 

 47, that in the Sertulariadse "gonophores, protected by the gono- 

 theca, are borne along the sides of the gonoblastidium." Ignorant 

 of the difference between a ''reproductive body" and an "ovarian 

 vesicle," that is, between a gonophore and a gonotheca, and conse- 

 quently of all the remarkable phenomena connected with the de- 

 velopment of the Hydrozoa, of which these terms are the exponents, 

 Dr. Nicholson has discanted before learned societies and to the 

 readers of scientific journals, on the relation of an obscure group of 

 fossils to recent animals from these organs of reproduction ! I may 

 as well here give the reason why I have come to the rescue of a set 

 of animals in which I have long been greatly interested. More than 

 two years ago, when Prof. Wyville Thompson, who had promised a 

 monograph of them to the Palseontographical Society, pressed me to 

 undertake it instead of him, I refused, because I had resolved to 

 confine myself to botanical researches ; and to this resolution I 

 would have adhered had I not been constrained to rescue my old 

 friends from the hands of a man who, from the first, appeared to 

 me to be, as he has now declared himself, imperfectly acquainted 

 alike with the fossils and their living representatives. 



4, A perusal of the laws of scientific nomenclature (British 

 Association or M. De Candolle's) will enlighten Dr. Nicholson as to 

 his Pleurograpsus. 



5. It is not pleasant to be personal, but it is often necessary — 

 scientific precision and truth require it. Dr. Nicholson has another 

 method. In the first part of his letter in your last number, he says 

 the error (introduced by Mr. Jenkins into the abstract of his 

 paper?) in the generic character of Dichograpsus, "has been re- 

 produced in a recent paper on Graptolites." Would it not have 

 been better to have been personal here, and said, reproduced by Mr. 

 Carruthers ? But what is the truth ? This erroneous character was 

 published by me in June, 1867 (did Mr. Jenkins make by mistake 

 his abstract from my paper?), in a paper which Dr. Nicholson has 

 read, for he has quoted from it. If there is any plagiarism, it is 

 Dr. Nicholson who has stolen from me. But if he prosecutes his 

 enquiries a little further, he will find that this character was not 

 published even then for the first time. 



And now, sir, I have done with Dr. Nicholson, and I trust he has 

 for some years done with Graptolites. Let Dr. Nicholson lay aside 

 his honours for a little, and become a scholar in natural science, and 

 no one will more heartily welcome him as a worker when he has 

 somewhat mastered his subject, than — Wm. Carruthers. 



^ Prof. Allman (whose terminology Greene adopts) and Prof, Huxley did me the 

 favour to read and approve my proof. — W.C. 



