4 Ecliin. 
XIV. ECHINODEEMA. 
The task of compiling this annual list, though laborious, is interesting, 
and it might even become a pleasure if only writers, editors, and publishers 
could be induced to spare their colleagues a vast amount of drudgery that 
is the more irritating because it ought never to be necessary. When 
authors’ reprints bear the original pagination and date, when secretaries 
of provincial societies think it w T orth -while to send their publications 
promptly to one of the largest scientific centres in the world, instead of 
keeping them back to save two-pennyworth of paper and postage, when 
one’s colleagues reply to polite questions and publishers condescend to 
execute business orders—then perhaps we shall no longer cry : “ a 
Recorder’s lot is not a happy one.” 
The large number of Titles might, however, give a false impression of 
the amount of work done if we did not recognise that results and remarks 
essentially the same were published many times over. A translation may 
be tolerated; if from Russian or J apanese, it may be even welcomed. A 
straightforward reprint or piracy may have its excuse for the public, if not 
for the publisher. But where is the need for this perpetual hash up of the 
same meat, with just enough change in the sauce to make it pass on the 
menu as a new dish ? To take but one example : Nos. 180, 181, 182, with 
their abstracts, contain nothing that is not in No. 127. The additional 
absurdity of the “Preliminary notice” to which attention has so often 
been called, in this Record and elsewhere, is manifested by a comparison 
of Koehler (172) of this year with Koehler (180) of last year’s Record. 
In (172) two genera and four species of Echinoids and 14 spp. of 
Ophiuroids are introduced as new, while no hint whatever is given of the 
fact that all the names except one had been published in the previous 
year, and that 11 of those names had then been accompanied by a sort of 
a description. These latter have been indexed herein, not as n. g. or 
n. sp., but as “Koehl. 1900.” Thus it is that the drudgery of the student 
is duplicated and the confusion of nomenclature made worse confounded. 
In some cases it really seems scarce worth while to abstract a preliminary 
note, for before the Record goes to press the final work appears, and, lo ! 
half of the author’s deeply interesting conclusions have been cancelled or 
modified. 
The length of the list is further increased, some say unduly so, by 
papers that are little more than records of the occurrence of fossils, and 
by accounts of developmental mechanics in which certain Echinoderms 
serve merely as the corpora vilia experimenti. These together compose 
more than half the list; but it would be difficult to include some, which 
certainly ought to find a place, and to reject others. 
Considering then the amount of poor grain, not to say chaff, in our 
harvest, it becomes a duty briefly to indicate the weightier material. 
II. Biology. A. The general views mentioned under this head in the 
Subject-Index, are for the most part repetitions or elaborations of ideas 
previously published. Those whose interest in the evolution of Cretaceous 
Ecliinoidea has been aroused by Rowe’s papers, will note his remarks 
with pleasure, and should turn to the parallel, though less detailed, work 
of Elbert (103). 
The classification of the Holothurians has long been considered unsatis¬ 
factory. It was plain that Ludwig’s system did not follow the phylogeny 
that he himself outlined, yet no other writer has been bold enough to 
take the obvious next step. Sluiter (284) has not taken it, but he has 
made it still easier by insisting on a yet more intimate union between the 
Elasipods and the recognised Holothuriidae (for details see n, a, iii, and 
the beginning of iv, b). Reiffen (258) on the other hand, in his excellent 
account of Ludivigia , tightens the bond between Cucumariidae and Mol- 
padiidae. The principles that guide Sluiter are such as will make havoc 
with most of our existing classifications; but if the postulate of classifica- 
