Cotteau's “Echinides de la Sarthe”

Abstract

A NOTICE of Cotteau et Triger's Echinides de la Sarthe in a recent number of NATURE (June 15, p. 120) is likely to convey a false impression of the accuracy of M. Cotteau, and throws considerable doubt on the value of his work. It is not often that French scientific men are as conscientious as he is in the examination of authentic types. There is hardly a collection of fossil Echini which M. Cotteau has not examined; and his thorough acquaintance with all that has been written on his subject, as well as his intimate correspondence with the principal echinologists, is a sufficient guarantee that no important memoir (such as Wright's monograph) could have escaped him. Anyone who will take the trouble of turning to Cotteau's work (p. III) will find, under Pseudodiadema hemisphæricum, a notice of Dr. Wright's figure of the same species (so much superior, with many others, to Cotteau's?) and a reference to his description. Nor is this an isolated case. Throughout the work M. Cotteau discusses and criticises more or less the results of this very monograph, said to have been overlooked by him. The mistake Cotteau is accused of making of assigning to Desor instead of Agassiz the specific name of Pseudodiadema hemisphæricum is entirely unfounded. Referring again to p. III., we find, as a synonym; Diadema hemisphæricum Agass. M. Cotteau, like many continental and American writers, does not interpret the notation of species as is required by the laws of the British Association, but for that reason he should not be accused of committing mistakes which his own writings show him not to have committed. M. Cotteau, in common with others, looks upon nomenclature simply as a matter of registration; and when M. Desor transfers to Pseudodiadema the Diadema hemisphæricum Agass., M. Cotteau writes, therefore, Pseudodiadema hemisphæricum Desor, and not Agassiz; he may be wrong, according to the principles of the writer in NATURE, but he has not, either in this instance or in the other cases alluded to, committed a mistake through ignorance of the subject.