470 Mr. J. G. Jeffreys on Scissurella and Schismopp^y^ ,^j[/[ 
Museum at Vienna, brought by the celebrated traveller and 
naturalist Natterer from the vicinity of Borba on the Rio 
Madeira, and numbered 833 of his collection. The bird closely 
resembles the well-known C. pareola, but has the crest yellow. 
Natterer^s notes upon this species are : " From the underwood, 
rather near the ground ; solitary." 
I believe it has never yet been published. 
XLIV. — On Scissurella and Schismope. 
By J. GwYN Jeffreys, Esq., F.R.S. 
To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 
Gentlemen, 
Although I knew that naturalists were, like poets, a "genus 
irritabile," I confess that I was not quite prepared for Mr. Wood- 
ward's attack on me in your last Number. 
He says that, because he thinks he has discovered an error, 
and had protested in vain against it, he was bound to publish. 
I beg leave to dispute the conclusion, if not the whole of the 
premises. 
When I showed Mr. Woodward specimens of the Scissurella 
striatula of Philippi (which I had much pleasure in presenting 
him with), he called my attention to the conversion of the fissure 
into a foramen when the shell became adult. We then referred 
to Sowerby and Philippi ; and I went to the Library of the 
British Museum and consulted D'Orbigny's Memoir. Mr. 
Woodward having informed me that he did not intend to publish 
on the subject, I did so, and mentioned in the March number 
of the ' Annals ' that he had pointed out to me the pecuharity 
in question, and at the same time I cited D'Orbigny's Memoir. 
About a fortnight afterwards, in consequence of Mr. Clark 
having expressed his opinion that Scissurella was synonymous 
or identical with Trochus, I made the further communication 
which appeared in the ' Annals ' for last month ; and I then went 
fully into the matter, being backed by the undeniable authority 
of JDr. Gray. This, Mr. Woodward calls seeking to justify my 
position by the " testimony of persons unacquainted with the 
facts of the case'' ! 
Mr. Woodward admitted to me that he had never previously 
seen any species of Scissurella except S. crispata ; and as he does 
not state that he has since seen any other, his belief that certain 
species which were described and figured by D'Orbigny, Sowerby 
and Philippi (eight in number) are varieties of one and the same 
species, I leave to the judgment of your readers. 
Mr. A. R. Wallace on the Orang-Utan or Mias of B(ymeo. 471 
^ The well-known accuracy of the late Mr. Sowerby makes it 
needless to do more than repeat his statement, that the species 
which he called elatior and concinna were found in the " Calcaire 
grossier/' Whether those species, or the >S^. decussata and ele- 
gans of D'Orbigny, are extinct, is another question, with which 
Mr. Woodward is probably not more familiar. 
If Mr. Woodward would take the trouble of reading again 
my paper in the * Annals ^ for April, he will, or ought to, be con- 
vinced that his remarks as to the separation of Schismope from 
Scissurella were unnecessary and uncalled for, because D'Orbigny 
and Sowerby evidently took their characters of what they re- 
garded as the same genus from different and uncongeneric 
species. 
My reason for wishing Mr. Woodward, instead of myself, in 
the first instance f to refer to D'Orbigny, was simply that he, and 
not T, might have the credit (if any) of making this separation. 
1 am therefore sorry that he should have put such a strange 
construction upon our conversation. 
I never heard of any " protest " from Mr. Woodward until I 
saw his letter in print. 
Yours obediently. 
J. GwYN Jeffreys. 
Montagu Square, London, 21st May 1856. 
P.S. Since writing the above, Professor King has reminded 
me that in his " Monograph of the Permian Fossils of England ^' 
(pp. 213 and 214), he satisfactorily made out Scissurella to be 
the same as Pleurotomaria, and that Mr. Morris, in his " Mono- 
graph of the Mollusca from the Great Oolite," follows him in 
that view. It can hardly be said that these naturalists are also 
" unacquainted " with the subject, so far as regards the palseon- 
tological part of it. Professor King quite approves of the sepa- 
ration of Schismope from Scissurella^ although he suspects the 
former may approach too closely to Deslongch amp's genus Tro- 
chotoma. 
XLV. — On the Orang- Utan or Mias of Borneo. 
By Alfred R. Wallace. 
Having spent nine months in a district where the Mias is most 
abundant, and having devoted much time and attention to the 
subject, I wish to give some account of my observations and 
collections, and particularly to record their bearing on the 
question of how many species are yet known from Borneo. 
I have altogether examined the bodies of seventeen freshly 
killed Orangs, all but one shot by myself. Of eleven of these