69 
that „when Pallas’ description of his Echinus minutus is carefully 
examined in connection with his fig. 25, pi. 1, and due consider- 
ation is given ,to his remarks about habitat and occurrence, it is 
almost impossible to doubt that his name was given to the fibulariid 
which O. F. Muller two years later called Spatagus pusillus“. It 
is therefore necessary to change the name pusillus into minutus. 
On examining Pal las’ description of this „ Echinus minutus u 
it is, however, easily seen that he does not name any Echi¬ 
nus minutus at all. He writes 1 ): „In Tabula I hujus fasciculi sub 
figura 24 & 25 EchinOS minut OS adjeci, de quibus hic verbiculus“, 
which means „I have added some small sea-urchins“. Nowhere 
does he name a species „Echinus minutus “ ; if that were the 
case he would not have omitted a reference to it in the index at 
the end of the fascicle, where all the species described are very 
carefully named; but it is not found there. It is thus beyond any 
doubt that the name pusillus has the priority, even after the strict- 
est interpretation of the priority rule, being published in 1776. 
The faet that Gmelin 2 ) in 1788 and Bla in ville 3 ) in 1834 
made the same mistake as Clark now has made again in 1914 
does not alter the faet that there is no „Echinus minutus Pallas“. 
Furthermore it is beyond doubt that, even if Pal las had really 
meant to give the scientific name Echinus minutus to these small 
sea-urchins, that name could not rightly have been used for Echi- 
nocyamus pusillus. It is true, there is no doubt that his figure 
25 really represents this species, which becomes quite evident from 
his statement „Abundat hic autem inter minuta testacea arenæ 
Belgicæ"; there is no other Echinoid occurring at the Belgian 
coasts with which it could be confounded, and I have myself a 
number of specimens collected at the sandy beach near Ostende. 
Buf Pal las refers to two different forms with his „Echinos mi¬ 
nutos" ; the first of them, fig. 24, „priore icone expressus subglo- 
bosus ex Orientali India crebro adfertur" ; this species is beyond 
doubt a Fibularia , and if there had really been an „Echinus mi¬ 
nutus Pallas" the name would then have to be applied to this 
*) P. S. Pal las. Spicilegia Zoologica. Fase. X. 1784. (p. 34'. 
2 ) L i n n æ u s. Systema naturæ. Ed. XIII. cura Gmelin 1788. p. 3194. 
*) H. de Blainville. Manuel d’Actinologie. 1834. p. 214. 
