30 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



an excellent figure, he considered as the true multiradiata, and when he came to 

 examine Troschel's notes upon the Lamarckian types at Paris he never thought of 

 restoring to them the name multiradiata, but renamed one of the two forms repre- 

 sented among them (Alecto) multifida, at the same time describing it in detail. 



This action of Muller in describing anew the Comatula multiradiata of Lamarck, 

 hitherto unidentifiable, resulted in the positive identification of 'that species, and 

 with it, the genus of which it is the type, the Comaster of L. Agassiz. The type of 

 this genus now becomes Alecto multifida Miiller= Comatula multiradiata Lamarck 

 reidentified. Concurrently with his perversion of the specific name multiradiata, 

 Miiller shifted the genus Comaster of Agassiz to cover the species described and 

 figured by Goldfuss, in spite of Agassiz' statement that the multiradiata of Lamarck 

 was the type. 



Although P. H. Carpenter in his earlier work partially rectified this error, he 

 later accepted Miiller's views in regard to Comaster, and thus failed to recognize its 

 rightful place in nomenclature. 



In the year in which Miiller published his first paper on the comatulids (1841) 

 Delle Chiaie described his Comatula bicolor, which seems to have attracted little 

 attention, as it was generally recognized as merely a synonym of Lamarck's Comatula 

 mediterranea. 



Miiller went to Sweden and examined at Lund the Linnean types, publishing 

 in 1843 a redescription of both Asterias multiradiata and A. pectinata, but he curi- 

 ously overlooked the type of Retzius' Asterias tenella. At the same time he de- 

 scribed two new species, Alecto purpurea, which he found in the Berlin Museum, 

 and Alecto wahlbergii, which he found in the Stockholm Museum. Both of these 

 species have since been strangely neglected, the former being incorrectly treated 

 as a synonym of the Linnean Asterias pectinata, and the latter as a synonym of 

 Miiller's earlier Alecto parvicirra. 



Michelin in 1845 noted the occurrence of Comatula carinata (Tropiometra 

 carinata) at Mauritius. 



In 1846 Diiben and Koren announced the discovery on the coasts of Scandinavia 

 of two species which they were unable to identify with any of the previously de- 

 scribed forms; they accordingly proposed for them the names Alecto petasus and 

 Alecto sarsii, following Miiller in the use of Leach's name Alecto. The first of these 

 species had been reported from the Scandinavian coast by Prof. Michael Sars in 

 1835 under the name of Comatula mediterranea, but his notice of its occurrence 

 does not seem to have attracted much attention. 



In 1846 Miiller described four additional species (Comatula macronema, C. 

 jacquinoti, C. tricfioptera, and C. rei/naudii) which he found in the Paris Museum, 

 and in 1849 he published his very important memoir on the genus Comatula and its 

 species, the first really adequate work on the subject, in which he treated of all the 

 forms then known. His genus Actinometra had given him considerable trouble, for 

 in many cases he had been unable to determine whether a specimen should be 

 referred to that genus or to Alecto (as understood by him), and in specimens in which 

 the disk was lost or concealed, as he knew of no other differences than those afforded 

 by the arrangement of the ambulacra, he was,, of course, quite at a loss. He there- 

 fore reduced Actinometra and Alecto to subgeneric rank under Comatula, which he 



