284 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM VOLUME 1 



Grenada [P. H. Carpenter, 1881]. 



Caribbean Islands [P. H. Carpenter, 1888]. 



Erroneous locality. University of Iowa's Barbados-Antigua Expedition station 

 15; Barbados [A. H. Clark, 1921] (3, U.I.M.; U.S.N.M.). 



Geographical range. From Cape Lookout, North Carolina, southward to the 

 Florida Keys and northern Cuba, thence westward to the Yucatan Bank. This species 

 is especially abundant along the Florida Keys. 



Bathymetrical range. From 14 to 1046 meters; but almost two-thirds of the records 

 are from between 100 and 250 meters. 



The average of 34 records is 264 meters; or, omitting the two extremes, 251 meters. 



About the Florida Keys the 26 records range between 110 (?91) and 402 (?411) 

 meters, with an average of 221 meters. 



The 3 records from the Cuban coast range from 323 to 442 meters, the average 

 being 379 meters; but little work has been done here in shallow water. 



Thermal range. The 6 records vary from 5.11 C. to 27.0 C., the average being 

 11.15 C. 



Occurrence. From the coast of North Carolina southward and westward to the 

 western end of the Florida Keys this species is very abundant wherever it is found, and 

 it appears to be very generally distributed. Outside of this area there are but three 

 records for northern Cuba and one for the northern part of the Yucatan Bank, and in 

 none of these four localities was it found in numbers. 



In the original account published in 1868, Pourtales recorded it as "quite abundant" 

 about 5 miles southsouthwest of Sand Key in 183 meters. 



In the following year Pourtales reported on the work of the Bibb, which in the 

 spring of 1868 had continued the work of exploring the Gulf Stream begun by the 

 Corwin in 1867. He divides the sea bottom here into 3 regions of which the second 

 extends in the form of a band from 10 to 20 miles broad parallel to the reef beginning 

 at a depth of about 164 meters and extending downward to about 548, the slope being 

 much less inclined than in the region further inshore, the area in fact deserving in a 

 great part of its extent the name of a submarine plateau. The bottom is rocky, rather 

 rough, and consists of a recent limestone continually though slowly increasing from the 

 accumulation of the calcareous debris of the numerous small corals, echinoderms and 

 mollusks living on its surface. This debris is consolidated by the tubes of serpulas, 

 the interstices filled up by foraminifera and further smoothed out by nullipores. 



In this region the Bibb found this species in great abundance, but the details of its 

 occurrence were not published. 



In summing up the occurrence of the crinoids obtained on the coasts of Florida and 

 Cuba in 1867, 1868 and 1S69 Pourtales gives this species as ranging from 172 to 356 

 meters. 



In 1881 P. H. Carpenter wrote that this species has the widest range of any 

 endocyclic comatulid in the Caribbean Sea. It was obtained by the Blake on the 

 Yucatan Bank and at various stations between Dominica and Grenada in from 137 to 

 532 meters, while Pourtales dredged it in great abundance at several localities in the 

 Florida Straits. Carpenter's account was republished by Mr. Alexander Agassiz in 

 1888. 



Carpenter remarked that the original specimens from Sand Key differ greatly 

 from others from Barbados and Grenada, and these from each other. 



