29 
be left out of consideration. And the Cælenterata how shall we 
classify them? Or the Helminths, or the Infusoria? 
There is one more alternative left, viz. that the Echinoids 
alone should be treated after that principle, in a marked contrast 
to all other animals. Every zoologist, I have no doubt, will at 
once protest against this doctrine. It must remain a fundamental 
rule for all classification of animals that all their characters 
should be taken into consideration, internal as well as ex- 
ternal structures, “hard parts” as well as “soft parts”, structures 
which can be fossilified and those which cannot. I agree that 
Lambert’s classificatory principle may be very practical for the 
classification of fossil Echinoids; but there is more in Zoology than 
fossil Echinoids. 
It seems, indeed, absurd that it should be necessary to 
discuss in earnest such paradoxes. Nevertheless it is necessary, 
since the principle mentioned has in all earnest been introduced 
into literature by Lambert and Thiéry, the authors quoted. 
Though their “Essai de Nomenclature raisonnée” has only begun to 
appear, it is evident already from the part published, as also from 
their “Notes échinologiques” I—III, 1 ) what a confusion of the 
recent forms will result form their classification. Never mind what 
all the specialists on the recent Echinoids agree on! The species 
must be classified in accordance with the fossil forms, after the 
structure of the test alone! Added to this that the authors emphati- 
cally adopt the principle that also prelinnæan names are to be 
adopted, when binomial, and that the rules of priority are inter- 
preted quite juridically in the strictest way, regardless of all that 
may be said in defence of previous use, so that one should think 
that the nomenclatural changes maintained by them would be a 
most desirable benefit to science to be fought for by all means 
available; further, that they, with equal emphasis, refer old, bad, 
and really quite unrecognizable figures to definite recent forms, 
*) Buil. Soc. d. Sci. Nat. de la Haute Marne, VI, 1909. 
