MONOGRAPH OF THE EXISTING CRINOIDS. 57 



list in the Alert report (1884) is the foundation upon which the knowledge of the 

 crinoid fauna of Australia must be built up. This was followed in the year suc- 

 ceeding by a list published at Sydney, and in 1888, 1889 and 1890 by lists and dis- 

 cussions of Australian species published both in England and in Australia, of which 

 the most important are the records of Mr. Thomas Whitelegge and of Prof. E. P. 

 Ramsay (Sydney) and of the Port Phillip biological survey (Melbourne). In 1894 

 the foundation was laid for the intensive study of the crinoids of the west coast of 

 Australia, while within recent years the work of the Hamburg west Australian 

 expedition and of the local surveying steamers Thetis and Endeavour has done 

 much to give us a clear idea of the Australian fauna. 



The gradual development of knowledge in regard to arctic comatulids must be 

 considered quite apart from the development of the subject as a whole, for the 

 arctic regions have been made the scene of a vast amount of detailed investiga- 

 tion, far exceeding that bestowed upon any other area of equal importance, and 

 the abundance of reliable records from the seas north of America, Europe, and 

 Asia finds no counterpart in any other district. 



About 40 workers have assisted in the elucidation of the arctic comatulids, 

 the majority taking little or no interest in those of other regions. 



So long ago as 1770 comatulids were found in abundance in the Arctic Ocean 

 and we find many references to them in the writings of the old explorers, more es- 

 pecially those of Pliipps, Scoresby and Dewhurst . Dr. W. E. Leach applied the name 

 glacialis to the largest, most characteristic, and most abundant of the Arctic species 

 some time before 1830, Professor Miiller, ignorant of Leach's work, rechristening it 

 in 1841. In 1859 Edward Forbes remarked upon the enormous abundance of this 

 form at Spitzbergen in moderate depths, and since then there has been a continuous 

 accumulation of data regarding tliis and other arctic species, at first more or less 

 unsatisfactory but soon becoming definite and exact, so that now we know more 

 about the arctic species and the bathymetric, thermal, and oecological conditions 

 under which they live than we do about any one of the species of Antedon occurring 

 along the European coasts, or about any other crinoid. 



A detailed history of all this Arctic research would be in effect a history of but 

 a single species, and is therefore reserved until the consideration of Ilelwmetra 

 glacialis; but it would be an injustice not to mention the investigators by whom 

 this history has been mainly written. Beginning with Wright (1866), Wyville 

 Thomson (1872), Nordenskjold (1876), Sladen (1877) and Stuxberg (1878), who 

 were the first to present really satisfactory data, we meet with the writings of 

 Lutken, d'Urban, von Marenzeller, Hoffman, Verrill, Fischer, P. H. Carpenter, 

 Ganong, Levinsen, Danielssen, Pfeffer, Drygalski, Schaudinn, the Prince of Monaco, 

 Doderlein, Hartlaub, Richard, Kcehler, Kolthoff, Rankin, Michailovskij, Mortensen, 

 Schmidt, Grieg and Derjugin. Almost all of these gentlemen published at least 

 two papers on the subject, and some of them quite a number. Doderlein's contribu- 

 tion to the "Fauna Arctica" is especially noteworthy in giving a valuable summary 

 of the records of all previous authors. 



70140 Bull. 8215 5 





