VINE : CLASSIFICATION OF THE PALEOZOIC POLYZOA. 25 
study of the minute parts of the cell should not yield similar advan- 
tages to the student of ancient organic forms. 
It is very certain then that some of the Palaeozoic Polyzoa at 
least may be safely placed, according to the structural elements under 
the division Cyclostomata, but there are others which could not 
with any degree of satisfaction to the Systematist be so placed, and 
for the inclusion of these, two independent divisions have been 
established by myself and Mr. E. 0. Ulrich, of America, which will 
now be separately considered. 
Sub-Order. Cryptostomata Vine. 1880-1. 
Zooecia sub-tubular, in section slightly angular. Orifice sur- 
rounded by a vestibule, or otherwise concealed. 
As there has been a little misunderstanding about my labours 
when trying to classify Palaeozoic Polyzoa, it may be as well to give 
a personal explanation of my own special work, or so much of it as will 
include the above sub-division. In my second report on Fossil 
Polyzoa, " British Association 1881," I reviewed all that was known 
in Great Britain about Palajozoic Polyzoa, and in that report special 
details will be found showing the position I occupied with respect to 
the then known British species. A few years previous to this Prof. 
H. A. Nicholson wrote several articles on American Devonian, and 
Silurian species,* and about the same time Mr. Robert Etheredge, 
jun.,t and the Messrs. Young, of Glasgow University,J pub- 
lished papers on carboniferous species. My knowledge of these 
Palaeozoic forms was drawn from Murchison's Siluria (Lonsdale) 
Phillips' Geology of Yorkshire, and M'Coy's publications, together 
with the new work of these later writers. In compiling my British 
Association Report, I went over all the type specimens of the 
Palaeozoic species in the School of Mines. At that time no one in 
England had wholly committed themselves to a new classification. 
Many authors followed either Morris's arrangement in his catalog-ue 
of British Fossils, or formulised suggestive divisions en passant. My 
earliest labours, for which Dr. Duncan and others blamed me, were 
directed towards modernising the classification so as to be more in 
* Greological Magazine, 1874. f Explanation of Sheet 23, Scotch Geol. Survey. 
X Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, 1874, and Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 1874. 
