898 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIII. 
been looked forward to with interest. After a considerable delay, 
due to the late financial depression in Australia, the work has now 
been published as Catalogue No. XVII of the Museum, That it is 
of the highest order of scientific excellence hardly needs to be said, 
particularly for those who are familiar with Professor Herdman’s dis- 
tinguished work in the past on this group of animals. 
The author has entitled his report a “ Descriptive Catalogue of the 
Tunicata in the Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales,” 
and he says that it is not to be regarded as a monograph on 
Australian Tunicata. He tells us that he was expressly enjoined 
by the trustees of the Museum “not to enter into anatomical and 
histological details beyond what he considered necessary for the 
elucidation of the systematic position and the sufficient description 
of the various species.” The fact, consequently, that he has devoted 
nearly one hundred large octavo pages and forty-two plates to the 
description of the sixty-two new species serves as an index to what 
this veteran ascidiologist believes to be the briefest treatment con- 
sistent with exactness in this group. 
In his introduction he gives a brief discussion of classification and 
concludes that, despite the various quite radically different systems 
that have since been proposed, he sees no sufficient reason for 
departing widely from the one adopted by him in his Challenger 
report of 1882. And he justly remarks that he feels himself 
strengthened in his position by the fact that this system has been 
quite generally adopted by recent writers, notably by Seeliger in his 
“ Tunicata ” for Bronn’s Klassen und Ordnungen des Thierreichs. 
He does, however, introduce one modification of considerable 
importance. He divides the Ascidiz composite into two sections, 
one of which contains the “compact-bodied families,” Botryllide and 
Polystyelida, and the other the “remaining families with extended 
or divided bodies.” For these he proposes to adopt the names 
“ Holosomata ” and “ Merosomata,” respectively, if Sluiter, who first 
used them, but in a somewhat different sense from that in which 
Herdman proposes to use them, will agree to Herdman’s modifica- 
tion. Or if Sluiter refuses to accept this modification, then Herdman 
will adopt the terms “ Pectosomata” and ‘“Chalarosomata ” ’ for the 
respective groups. 
There can be no doubt, jarioa since the Polystyelidæ and 
Botryllidæ have been shown to agree so closely in their method of 
budding, that they should be associated more closely in classification 
than either family can be with the other families of compound ascid- 
