56 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



HISTORY OF THE INTENSIVE WORK UPON THE COMATULIDS. 



The preceding sketch shows the gradual development of the systematic side 

 of the study of the comatulids from the first beginnings up to the present day; 

 but beside this constructive work a very considerable amount of intensive work 

 has been done. This intensive work, whereby our knowledge of single species, but 

 not of the group as a whole, has been advanced, has been mainly confined to mul- 

 tiplying records of locality within restricted areas. 



As might be expected, Antedon bifida is the chief species concerned; but it is 

 rather strange that out of the very numerous records published of the capture of 

 this form, by far the greater part are in English journals. Antedon petasus has also 

 come in for a fair share of attention, but we are rather surprised at the lack of in- 

 terest which has been displayed in regard to A. mediterranea. Known from the 

 vicinity of Naples so long ago as 1592, it has been repeatedly recorded from that 

 district, although other locality records are very few; we do not understand it nearly 

 so well as we do Antedon bifida in spite of the fact that we have known it for more 

 more than 100 years longer. Antedon adriatica, although reported as abundant in 

 the Adriatic Sea, by Olivi, as far back as 1792, has been so neglected that it was 

 not even differentiated as a valid species until the past year. 



The echinoderm fauna surrounding the coasts of Great Britain is now, thanks 

 to the early and enthusiastic interest shown by the British naturalists in dredging, 

 fairly well understood; and since the first discovery of Antedon petasus in 1835 and 

 of Hathrometra sarsii in 1844, but especially since the discovery of Khizocrinus lofo- 

 tensis in 1864, the Norwegian naturalists, particularly M. Sars, Danielssen, Koren, 

 and J. A. Grieg, have greatly developed the echinoderm fauna of the rich Nor- 

 wegian coast, and we now have at hand a large mass of data concerning these species. 



There has been only a slight and transient interest shown in the comatulids of 

 the corresponding portion of North America. Retzius described Hathrometra 

 tenella from "St. Croix" in 1783, and Say described H. dentata from New Jersey in 

 1825; since then a number of records of their capture in the early explorations by 

 the ships of the United States Fish Commission (in which, however, both are given 

 under the same name) have been published by Prof. Addison E. Verrill, but prac- 

 tically nothing by anybody else, or in recent years. 



The western coast of North America remained absolutely a terra incognita so 

 far as its crinoids were concerned until 1907, in which year many species were 

 described from the region. 



Chiefly within comparatively recent years a notable advance has been made 

 in the intensive study of the crinoids inhabiting the coasts of Australia. The 

 first local record, published in Tasmania in 1835 by Wilton, proves to have been 

 based on some organism not a crinoid. There is the same difficulty with the second 

 record, published by Sir Richard Owen in 1862. The third record is scarcely more 

 fortunate, for here a portion of a comatulid is described as a cystidean. Nine years 

 after this we find described and figured two comatulid pentacrinoid larvse, but they 

 are given a place in the Porifera instead of in the Echinodermata. Except for these 

 records and notices of Australian species inserted in comprehensive works, Bell's 



