224 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



History. In 1888 Dr. P. H. Carpenter mentioned a very remarkable specimen 

 dredged by the Blake in the Caribbean Sea which he placed near N. rubiginosa ("lin- 

 eata"). It was chiefly noteworthy for the great irregularity in the division series. 

 On Carpenter's death the specimen disappeared and did not come into Hartlaub's 

 hands with the rest of the Blake collection. There can be no doubt that this was an 

 example of the species subsequently described under the name of iowensis, and it 

 must have been very similar to the one in the Yale Museum from Dominica. 



Prof. Charles C. Nutting wrote (1895) that perhaps the greatest surprise on the 

 Bahaman expedition from the University of Iowa in 1893 was the discovery at the 

 Dry Tortugas of a magnificient crinoid with a spread of about 12 inches and of a 

 rich golden-brown color living in water less than 3 feet deep. The two specimens 

 which he collected served Mr. Frank Springer as cotypes of his Actinometra iowensis 

 which he described in 1902, and in more detail, with figures, in 1903. 



Mr. Alexander Agassiz told Professor Nutting that he had previously found large 

 comatulids at Tortugas, though apparently he did not preserve any specimens of 

 them, since there are none at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Hartlaub 

 did not mention any in his memoir on the Blake collections. 



After the establishment of the Marine Biological Laboratory of the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington at the Tortugas in 1904 the director, Dr. Alfred Goldsbor- 

 ough Mayor, was constantly on the watch for this species, but never succeeded in 

 finding a single individual. Mr. Frank Springer for many years was very anxious to 

 study the younger stages of some one of the comasterids for comparison with those of 

 Antedon, and Professor Nutting's discovery indicated that the Tortugas would be a 

 suitable place for such work. The desire to assist Mr. Springer in carrying out his 

 plans gave Doctor Mayor a special incentive in his quest. But his search, carried on 

 year after year, was fruitless, for no other examples ever were found. 



Doctor Mayor was an unusually able and energetic naturalist, and his inability 

 to discover this form or, indeed, any comatulids of any kind either along the shore 

 or in deep water annoyed him not a little, for he always referred to it every time we 

 met. He used to say that at the Tortugas laboratory he had two telegrams already 

 written announcing the rediscovery of this type, and Mr. Springer and I must 

 expect to receive them at any time. But a perverse fate never gave him an oppor- 

 tunity to send them. 



In his report upon the Blake comatulids (1912) Hartlaub described and figured 

 (pi. 17, fig. 14) what is evidently a specimen of this species which he says is apparently 

 from Montserrat bi 88 fathoms. He referred it to Actinometra echinoptera var. 

 discoidea. 



Under the heading Actinometra blakei he described in detail an individual from 

 Blake station 171 which he had originally considered a new form and had provisionally 

 named Actinometra echinoptera var. multicirra. The specimen is very badly broken, 

 so that the number of the arms can not be determined; Hartlaub gave it as " 10(?)." 

 The cirri have about 16 segments, and the photograph shown as figure 9 on plate 13 

 (to which there is no reference in the text) shows that they are of the type charac- 

 teristic of iowensis. 



I have no doubt but that this is a specimen of iowensis with a reduced number of 

 arms, for the cirri are obviously of the iowensis type and there are no dark marks on 







