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specimen lie compiled a new character for the genus from the 
description and figure of MM. Quoy and Graimard, paying no 
attention to the fact that M. Be Blainville had already figured 
and described a very different sponge under the name of 
Alcyoncellum, so that in fact they were giving the same name 
to two very different sponges, a course of proceeding very 
puzzling to the student. Dr. Bowerbank, defiant of all the rules 
about priority, has chosen to retain the name of Alcyoncellum 
to the Corbeil de Venus, though M. Be Blainville had applied 
it to the branched calcareous species several years previously. 
Professor Owen, when he described Mr. Cuming’s specimen, 
properly applied the new name of Euplectella, or beautiful net, 
to the genus, but not because of the confusion caused by the 
mistake of MM. Quoy and Graimard and M. Milne-Edwards, 
which would have been a very valid argument, but because he 
and M. Milne-Edwards misread Be Blainville’s name of Alcy- 
oncellum for Alcyonella , observing that name had already been 
applied by Lamarck to a genus of fresh-water polypes. 
Professor Owen had evidently not observed the very decided 
difference between the genera named Alcyoncellum by Be 
Blainville and by M. Milne-Edwards, for in his paper he speaks 
of “ Alcyonellum gelatinosum ” of Be Blainville and “ Alcy- 
onella speciosum of Quoy and Graimard as if they were the 
same species, instead of two sponges as unlike as it is possible 
for two sponges to be from each other. 
All this may appear of little importance, but as the great use 
of Zoology is to enable the student to record his observations 
with accuracy, so that succeeding observers may understand 
them, and this can never be carried out if two very different 
animals or plants bear the same name, as one observer may be 
speaking of one animal and the other of the different one which 
has been called by the same name by some other describer. 
This has been the source of numberless errors. 
The name and synonyms of the species may be tabulated as 
follows. 
Euplectella speciosa. — Gray, Ann. and Mag. of N. II., 1866. 
Alcyoncellum; speciosum. — Quoy and Gaimard, Voy. Astrolabe, Zoophytes , 
302, t. 26, f. 3, 1833, imperfect. 
Euplectella aspergillum. — Owen, Trans. Zool. Soc., iij. 203, 1. 13, 1843, 
with basal filaments. 
Euplectella Cucumer. — Owen, Trans. Linn. Soc. xxi. 117, t. 21, a short 
specimen without apical fringe. 
Alcyoncellum orbicula and A. aspergillum. — Bowerbank, British 
Sponges, vol. i. 117, t. 29, f. 356-357, p. 257. 
Mr. Cuming obtained his specimen at the Island of Zebu, one 
of the Philippines, and all those that are now in the market 
are said to come from the same locality, and I believe that it is 
well known that they are sent from Manilla, the capital of the 
