O KO 
—■ O «j 
instead of titting in with natural affinities, are found to traverse 
them at all points.” In 1884 the late G. Busk 1 2 ) who has 
rendered so great services to the study of the Bryozoa, published 
his report on the cheilostomatous Bryozoa from the Challenger 
expedition. The author, who had hitherto laid the chief stress on 
the colonial characters, strives to a certain degree to accomodate 
himself to the systematic views of Smitt and Hincks, the 
correctness of which he partially acknowledges, but he thinks, how- 
ever, that these authors have underestimated the colonial cha¬ 
racters. The result of this mediation is, as he himself acknow¬ 
ledges, far from being satisfactory. I shall here quote the following 
part of his introduction: “As to the scheme of classification followed 
in this Report, .... it is scarcely necessary to remark that it has 
no pretension to be regarded as more than a convenient and to a 
considerable degree artificial arrangement, . . . . For allthough 
many of the famiiy groups may in some measure be regarded as 
expressing natural alliances, many of them,. can only be 
considered as artificial, and as such they must perhaps remain 
until we are better acquainted with the true significance of the 
mi nute parts or organs upon which the disti ncti ve characters are 
in many cases founded. Nor at present, perhaps, are we in a 
position fully to appreciate the relative value of the zooecial as 
compared with the zooarial characters, which of late it appears to 
be the fashion, unduly as I think, to depreciate; the individuality 
of the zoarium as a continuous whole or entity having been too 
much overlooked in the almost exclusive consideration of its com- 
ponent parts or segments.” 
A somewhat similar standpoint has been taken up by Rev. 
A. M. Norman 3 ), who has published a number of valuable papers 
on the Bryozoa. He expresses himself as follows: “It has been 
argued by recent writers that the form which a colony of a polyzoon 
belonging to the Cheilostomata assumes is of no moment in generic 
B 14 a. 
2 ) 43. p. 122. 
