EEPORT ON THE TETRACTINELLIDA. 
li 
them as to the adoption of a new system of terms. As a result we drew up, with the 
assistance of Professor Stewart of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, the following scheme, 
which, as regards the larger spicules, is chiefly founded on the distinction between axes 
and actines, which I believe I was the first to draw attention to in a paper describing 
Tricentrion muricata [Plectronella pajpUlosa)} For the general plan of the scheme I am 
therefore responsible, but several excellent terms proposed by Vosmaer find a place in it. 
Dr. V. Lendenfeld was anxious, and I think rightly so, to make as little change as 
possible in adapting our terms from the Greek, so that they might be used with the same 
universality as say those of human anatomy ; we were thus led to avoid the addition of 
useless terminations such as “ ites ” to words complete enough without them, at the same 
time we felt at liberty to 'modify the termination for English use so long as this could be 
done without affecting the root; in other languages other terminations more in consonance 
with their own genius may be substituted for ours without impairing their intelligibility. 
Thus it makes little difference whether we say “ strongyla” or “ strongyle,” but the latter 
has a more English sound.^ An abbreviation from “ actine ” to “acte” as used by 
Schulze is, however, scarcely admissible, since this not only affects the form of the root, but 
introduces another of a totally different meaning, “ acte ” in Greek signifying a sea-shore. 
Since Greek lends itself more readily to the construction of compound words we have 
made use of it in preference to Latin. Further, we have not confined ourselves to finding 
names for the different forms of entire spicules, but have sought also for terms to designate 
their several parts or regions, feeling convinced that for scientific purposes a replaeement 
of “vulgar” by elassical terms is by no means to be deprecated, but rather encouraged, 
and that earnestly ; for not only are brevity and exactness thus ensured, but the classical 
tongues being still in a sense common to all nations, all writers alike can make use of 
terms derived from them, and thus since Latin has ceased to be the universal language 
we may hope to mitigate the confusion of tongues by the multiplication of universally 
accepted technical terms. It is a comparatively easy task to read a memoir in a foreign 
tongue when once one is familiar with all the most important and most frequently 
occurring words, as one must be if a common nomenclature is used to designate the 
objects and parts of objects which are the subjects of description. In a word, by the 
extension of a common scientific phraseology, we may hope to reduce the differences 
between existing languages to a difference in their framework, which may be filled up with 
terms having a common signification. 
Partly for this reason I have not scrupled to invent a new term whenever the nature 
of the subjeet seemed to require it ; a further justification is to be found in the increased 
1 Sollas, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 5, vol. iii. p. 236, fig. 3, 1879. 
^ Thus, as we say spicule and spicules in English, and not spiculmn and spicula, so I shall speak of oscule and 
oscules, of conule and conules, and so forth ; if it he remarked that to he consistent I ought also to write collenchyme 
and not collenchyma, I admit it, and at the same time confess that it is only by accident that the latter form found its 
way into the text. 
