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Show 656 MR. F. J. BELL ON THE ECHINOIDEA. [June 17, are two very differentl words, and that when specimens are accessible which have served as basis for any systematic work, their results should be accepted when correct, even when they upset a nomenclature generally recognized" ('Revision of the Echini' p. 301). Let us now see the extent of the "appearance" of this name. In the year 1810 there was published the 42nd edition of the ' Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum ;' and on page 65 we find a list of the genera of the family of the ' Echinidae,' among which stands the name Hipponoe. All that we have here is a mere list, with numbers appended to indicate the table-cases in which the specimens were to be found, and that under an arrangement long since altered : it is hardly worth while to inquire when ; for in the year 1841, which ( although apparently by a slip) is the year ascribed by Gray himself2 to the publication (if so it may be called) of his name Hipponoe, Louis Agassiz put out, and thus defined, the name Tripneustes:- "Le genre Tripneustes est caracte'rise par trois rangees verticales et paralleles de doubles pores dans chaque demi-aire ambulacraire et par une rangee principale de tubercules aux bords iuternes des plaques interambulacraires. La collerette des piquans est tres-de-veloppee et la baguette fortement sillonnee d'un bout a l'autre. Ces Our sins ont de profondes entailles au pourtour de l'ouverture in-ferieure du test. II se pourrait que ce genre coincidat avec le genre Hipponoe de Gray, qui n'est point decrit, mais simplement cite dans le Catalogue du Musee Britannique. Dans ce cas, le nom de M . Gray devrait etre prefere au mien "3. It has been a matter of some great difficulty to make out the history of this name. In the Bibliographical list of Alex. Agassiz ('Revision of the Echini'), the only references appended to the name Tripneustes are, " Int. Mon. Scut. " (sic) and " C. R. Ann. Sc. Nat. vi.." The second reference is intelligible enough ; and the first obviously refers to the ' Monographie des Scutelles,' published in 1841 ; but it is obvious that the Introduction, which deals with the " groupe des Scutelles en general," would only refer in the most incidental manner to so distant a form as Tripneustes ; and it would have been convenient if Prof. Alex. Agassiz had given the page on which his father refers to this form: I have searched the pages of the Introduction in vain. Prof. Louis Agassiz seems to have believed that he first used it, definitely at any rate, in the preface to Valentin's ' A^natomie du genre Echinus ' (cf. ' Nomina systematica generum Echinoderma-tum,' where we find Tripneustes, Agass. Monogr. Echin. 4elivr. 1841). Since writing the above, which I let stand for the purpose of giving an idea of the difficulties which are found in our way, there has come into my hands an unbound copy of the four parts of tbe * Monographies d'Echinodermes,' b}r which I find that in the 2de livraison, which contained the ' Monographie des Scutelles,' there was 1 Different so far as that one is a " sense," and one a "nonsense" word, yet not so different but that Hipponoe is the French form of Hipponoa. 2 Proc. Zool. Soc. 1855, p. 36. 3 Valentin's ' .Anatomie du genre Echinus,,' p. -viii of the Preface by L. Agassiz. |