412 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



is clearly an extract, was published in the "Tasrnanian Journal of Natural Science," 1843, ii, No. vii, 

 pp. 118-120. 



It is quite evident from the tenor of his paper Mr. Wilton had many specimens. They were 

 only found on the beach or in rock-pools, adhering to sea-weed, after gales. Examples of this or- 

 ganism were sent to Oxford previous to 1841, and presented to the Ashmolean Society. 



After reading the original account, as given above, Dr. F. A. Bather of the British 

 Museum (Natural History) wrote me that Encrinus australis was certainly a crinoid. 

 On reading it myself I came to the same conclusion. The "body" is the more or less 

 columnar centrodorsal ; the "three rows of irregularly shaped hollow sections" are 

 the cirrus sockets; the "tentacula of about 80 joints" are the cirri; the "five clavicles" 

 are the radials; the "two scapulae" are the two elements of the IBr series; and the 

 "fingers" are the pinnules. The joints in the arms "with an oval orifice in the centre 

 from which proceed radii to the circumference" are the syzygies. The large number 

 of cirrus segments, 80, and the color, show that this description can refer only to the 

 species that has long been known as Ptilometra mulleri A. H. Clark, which now becomes 

 Ptilometra australis (Wilton). 



Wishing to see some of the Rev. Mr. Wilton's specimens if possible, I wrote to 

 my friend Sir Edward B. Poulton at Oxford who was so very kind as to search the 

 collection of the Ashmolean Muesum for me, but was unable to find them. 



In 1877 Prof. Edward Perceval Wright described a new genus and species of 

 sponge, Kallispongia archeri, that had been brought from Australia by W. H. Harvey, 

 who found the specimens growing on Delesseria. In recording this paper in the Zoolog- 

 ical Eecord for 1877 Stuart 0. Ridley called attention to its crinoidlike form and 

 said it was doubtful whether it was a sponge. Professor Wright's figures show what 

 appear to be pentacrinoids of two species, presumably of this species and of Comp- 

 sometra loveni, both of which are common at Sydney. He distinguished the penta- 

 crinoid of what is possibly this species as a variety. 



In his preliminary report upon the comtulids collected by the Challenger pub- 

 lished on March 6, 1879, Dr. P. H. Carpenter listed Antedon macrocnema (dredged at 

 Port Jackson hi 30-35 fathoms) as one of the seven species he had been able to identify 

 with any certainty. In a memoir on the genus Actinometra published in 1879 Car- 

 penter listed Antedon macrocnema (including both this species and macronema) as an 

 Antedon, in contrast to Actinometra ( = the family Comasteridae) . In 1880 he wrote 

 that the obsolescence of the boundary between the ligament and muscular fossae, the 

 reduction of the latter, and the relative lowness of the articular faces characteristic 

 of the Comasteridae reappears in Antedon macrocnema, almost alone in this respect 

 among the species of Antedon. He also compared the centrodorsal and radial faces 

 of Antedon macrocnema in detail with those of various fossil species. As the specimens 

 used for dissection had been collected by the Challenger at Sydney (Port Jackson) 

 the species concerned was Ptilometra australis and not P. macronema. 



In 1882 Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell proposed a specific formula for Antedon macronema 

 which was amended by Carpenter early in the year following. 



In the Challenger report on the stalked crinoids published in 1884 Carpenter 

 reprinted part of the summary of the account of Encrinus australis originally published 

 in 1845. 



In a paper published in 1885 on a collection of echinoderms that had been brought 



