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Show 1882.] PROF. F. J. BELL ON THE GENUS PSOLUS. 643 there he makes no use of his own name Cuvieria, but applies that Berenice to a genus to which, as Prof. Haeckel (see his Syst. Med. i. p. 152) assures us, his earlier and beautifully figured Cuvieria carisochroma would belong. It follows therefore that Jager (De Holoth. p. 30) is right in saying, "Cuvier hujus tribus autor est," and that de Blainville (Actin. p. 191), Brandt (Prodr. p. 47), and Selenka (Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool. xvii. p. 343) are, in citing Peron as the author of the name, almost as wrong as Haeckel, who (loc. cit.), in writing "Trotzdem hat spater (1817) Peron denselben Gattungnamen fiir ein Echinoderm Psolus eingeftihrt," and Verrill (Proc. Bost. Soc. N. H. x. p. 353), by adding 1817 to the name Peron, commit the additional error of forgetting that it was seven years earlier, that is in 1810, that there was lost to science an investigator so enthusiastic and so distinguished that one feels the chilly formality of the terms in which regret was expressed at his death-" aussi affligeante pour les amis des sciences qu'elle le fut pour les siens propres" (Pref. to vol. ii. of the 'Voyage'). Curiously enough, the history of the name does not end here. Just as Cuvieria dropped out from Peron's names for Medusae, so did Cuvier's picture of Hoi. cuvieria, which appeared in the 1817 and 1829 editions of the 'Regne Animal,' disappear from the plates of the magnificent edition of that monumental work which we owe to the devotion of a " reunion de disciples de Cuvier." 1 It did not disappear, however, before it gave rise to one of the most curious mistakes committed by a famous naturalist: a reference to the account given by de Blainville in the Diet. Sc. Nat. xxi. (1821) pp. 315-317, shows quite clearly that that distinguished student mistook the oral for the anal pole of the body. As the description is rare, if we may judge from the fact that it was not seen by Prof. Semper (Hoi. p. 241), I propose to quote it in full:- " H. cuvieria, G. Cuv. Regne Anim. pl. xv. 9. Corps ovale, comme rugueux, l'anus superieur entoure de cinq tentacules squamiformes; les tentacules de la bouche au nombre de dix (?) et presque filiformes. Des mers de l'Australasie(?)." A comparison of this description with the figure of Cuvier and with that given for what is clearly the same form by Selenka (Zeits. wiss. Zool. xviii. pl. viii. fig. 1), who calls it Stolinus cataphractus, will abundantly prove the statement now made. That being so, it is clear that the term cuvieria has no claim for application to the species, de Blainville's as much as Jager's"Beschreibung" being "ungiiltig," in consequence of which, to use the words of Semper (loc. cit.), " wird der Selenka'sche Artname ' cataphractus' eintreten miissen." Perhaps, indeed, no creature has been more misrepresented; for C. A, Lesueur 2 says that " the feet are placed behind." After a discussion which, however barren in the eyes of a naturalist, is not without necessity for the work of the systematise 1 Paris, Victor Masson (1849), in 22 vols. 2 Journal Acad. Nat. Sc. Philadelphia, iv. p. 156. It is curious to note that of the ' Holothuries Cuvienes' of Lesson, not one is a Psolus (see Cent. Zool. p. 239). |