Bateson's views attracted considerable attention, and were thought by
many to lighten appreciably the obscurity in which the origin of
Vertebrates was wrapped. Thus Lankester wrote in his article on
Vertebrates[421] in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_:--"It seems that in
_Balanoglossus_ we at last find a form which, though no doubt
specialised for its burrowing sand-life, and possibly to some extent
degenerate, yet has not to any large extent fallen from an ancestral
eminence. The ciliated epidermis, the long worm-like form, and the
complete absence of segmentation of the body-muscles lead us to forms
like the Nemertines. The great proboscis of _Balanoglossus_ may well be
compared to the invaginable organ similarly placed in the Nemertines.
The collar is the first commencement of a structure destined to assume
great importance in _Cephalochorda_ and _Craniata_, and perhaps
protective of a single gill-slit in _Balanoglossus_ before the number of
those apertures had been extended. Borrowing, as we may, the nephridia
from the Nemertines, and the lateral in addition to the dorsal nerve, we
find that _Balanoglossus_ gives the most hopeful hypothetical solution
of the pedigree of Vertebrates."