336 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and had found that they represent the form which he had described as imperialis. 

 He was inclined to believe that the Linnean Asterias pectinata, which he included in 

 the synonymy with a query, is simply a color variety of Solaris. His Alecto purpurea, 

 described in 1843, he considered as a synonym of Solaris, remarking that it differs 

 only in the number of the radials (that is, the radials and the elements of the IBr 

 series), of which 2, united by syzygy, are visible; this difference he regarded as per- 

 haps due to age, the type of purpurea representing the young form. Repeating the 

 error of 1843, he gave the habitat as "Indien." He mentioned having examined 

 specimens in the museums at Paris, Vienna, and Leyden. 



Dujardin and Hup6 (1862) divided the recent comatulids among the genera 

 Comatula, Actinometra, and Comaster. They took their description of Comatula 

 Solaris directly from the description published by Muller in 1843, giving as the locality 

 "mers de PInde." They also republished Miiller's description of Actinometra 

 imperialis, overlooking the fact that Muller himself regarded Solaris and imperialis as 

 synonymous. 



In 1879 Dr. P. H. Carpenter published extensive notes on the structure, particu- 

 larly of the skeleton, of Solaris and of another form which he called Actinometra 

 robusta. This name he had found associated with specimens purchased from the 

 Godeffroy Co. at Hamburg which had been identified by Dr. Christian Liitken; but 

 no description of the type ever had been published. He does nor mention the place 

 of origin of the specimens dissected, but the figured specimen of Actinometra Solaris 

 was from Singapore, and the specimen of Actinometra robusta was one in his father's 

 collection which had been acquired from the Godeffroy Co. and which had come from 

 Australia. In the preparation of this memoir he had been able to examine the 

 Challenger collection, the large collection made by Prof. Carl Semper in the Philip- 

 pines, and the collection of the British Museum. In the autumn of 1876 he had 

 visited Paris and there examined the material previously studied by Lamarck and 

 by Muller. In Semper's collection from Bohol, Philippine Islands, he had found a 

 number of specimens which he had identified as Actinometra Solaris, and he had sent 

 the myzostomes from these and from some similar specimens from the Moluccas to 

 Prof. Ludwig von Graff, giving Actinometra solans as the name of the host. In this 

 memoir the Philippine specimens are mentioned under the name of Actinometra 

 pectinata, but with no indication that they are the same ones mentioned by von 

 Graff in 1877 as Actinometra Solaris. 



In a preliminary notice of the Challenger collection published in 1879 Carpenter 

 noted the presence of Actinometra Solaris, and in another paper published in the same 

 year he gave various notes on its anatomical structure. 



In a popular account of the comatulids published in 1880 Carpenter figured an 

 un plated disk of Actinometra Solaris drawn from a specimen in the Challenger collec- 

 tion, but the species is not mentioned in the text, nor is the origin of the specimen 

 given. 



In his preliminary account of the comatulids collected by the Blake Carpenter 

 remarked that the species of Actinometra in which he had found the plating of the 

 disk to reach its greatest development in a large one common at Cape York, which is 

 probably identical with Actinometra robusta Liitken, MS. He also noted that the 



