and anatomically any one species, or systematically a whole group, credit is due, but I must think the mere defining a species is nothing, and that no INJUSTICE is done him if it be overlooked, though a great inconvenience to Natural History is thus caused. I do not think more credit is due to a man for defining a species, than to a carpenter for making a box. But I am foolish and rabid against species-mongers, or rather against their vanity; it is useful and necessary work which must be done; but they act as if they had actually made the species, and it was their own property.
I use Agassiz's nomenclator; at least two-thirds of the dates in the Cirripedia are grossly wrong.
I shall do what I can in fossil Cirripedia, and should be very grateful for specimens; but I do not believe that species (and hardly genera) can be defined by single valves; as in every recent species yet examined their forms vary greatly: to describe a species by valves alone, is the same as to describe a crab from SMALL portions of its carapace alone, these portions being highly variable, and not, as in Crustacea, modelled over viscera. I sincerely apologise for the trouble which I have given you, but indeed I will give no more.