1880. ] Development of Amphioxus Lanceolatus. 3 
Almost simultaneously with this discovery of Costa, it was redis- 
covered,;upon the coast of Cornwall by Mr. Couch, and was 
recognized by Mr. Yarrell as the Limax lanceolatus of Pallas. 
But Mr. Yarrell also recognized as Costa had already done, and 
thus corroborating the doubts of Stewart, that instead of being a 
Limax it was, in reality, closely allied to the class of fishes, and 
not aware of its discovery in Italy, by Costa, he erected a new 
genus for it, Amphioxus (Amphi, on both sides, and orus, sharp, 
from the fact that both extremities are pointed), and described it 
in 18361 as Amphioxus lanceolatus. It will thus be seen that the > 
generic name assigned it by Costa has priority over that instituted 
by Yarrell, but the term Branchiostoma being founded upon a 
misconception of the functions of the tentacles, and the specific 
name of Pallas having priority over all, the name as given by 
- Yarrell, Amphioxus lanceolatus, has come, by common consent, to 
be adopted as the appellation of this small denizen of the sea. 
Since 1836 Amphioxus has been found inhabiting nearly every 
quarter of the globe, specimens having been taken in China, Bor- 
neo, South as well as North America, and along the entire coast 
of Europe, although it has been found most abundantly in the 
waters of the Mediterranean sea, near Naples and Messina, Italy, 
where at present the conditions seem fo be most favorable i 
its propagation and growth. 
These various specimens, coming from such widely daai 
localities, were supposed, by their discoverers, to represent dis- 
_ tinct.species of this animal, and specific names have. accordin 
been given them, as Amphioxus belcheri Gray, for the East Indian 
form, and Branchiostoma caribeum Sundeval, for the form upo 
our coast, but the best informed European systematists consider’ 
that all these forms represent but a single species,’ the A. lanceo- 
latus Yarr., of Europe, which thus becomes one of the most 
widely distributed, as it is certainly one of the most anomalous. 
of existing animals? Da 
es 
1 Hist. of Brit. Fishes. Wm. Yarrell. Vol. 11, p. 468, London, 1836. ; 
2 Traité de Zoölogie. Page 808. , 1878. Translated by Prof. G. Moquin: 
sei from the eke and latest tte ae the Handbuch der Zodlogie of Prof. Me. 
Claus 
3 Dr. Gill, of the Smithsonian Institution, see me that Sundeval nad the 
Caribeean form from that of Europe on account of a difference in the number of | 
plates, or fibers in the muscle-plates, of one seins from that of the other. I have 
as yet t been able to examine the two forms witha view to determine this acai 
