396 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Reef specimens in the character of the cirri and especially in the relative proportions 

 of the lower pinnules. 



He dissected the calices of both and found them to be so very similar that the 

 differences between them can hardly be regarded as due to anything more than local 

 variation. The radials of the French Reef specimens are relatively higher and slightly 

 more sloping than those of the Cape Frio variety; but were these^ calices fossil 

 specimens he said that he should have much hesitation in referring them to different 

 species. 



He noted, further, that several individuals in the very large collection from French 

 Reef and a few individuals of the Cape Frio variety agree in possessing spherodes 

 on the ungrooved posterior arms. But he remarked that in the meridionalis type, 

 as in all the species of Comasteridae of which he had been able to examine any con- 

 siderable number of individuals, the presence of ungrooved arms and of spherodes 

 is altogether inconstant and irregular. 



In his redescription of Actinometra [Neocomatella] pulchella he said that the 

 10-armed individuals belonging to this species are of the meridionalis type, with a 

 synarthry between the elements of the IBr series. 



The pentacrinoids from South Carolina he described in some detail, comparing 

 them with those of Antedon bifida and Hathrometra sarsii. 



He described a very young meridionalis with a relatively large well-combed 

 pinnule on the second brachial and another fairly large pinnule on the eighth, while 

 the intervening brachials have small or poorly developed pinnules, that of the fifth 

 being either a mere stump or absent altogether. 



From Carpenter's discussion it is evident that, as the natural result of his previous 

 studies, which had to do chiefly with the multibrachiate Indo-Pacific types, his 

 attention was almost entirely directed toward the characters presented by the arms, 

 and he paid almost no attention to those afforded by the cirri, which organs have 

 since been found to exhibit features of prime importance in the Comasteridae, 

 especially in the 10-armed types. He laid particular stress on the syzygy between the 

 elements of the IBr series in Comatula Solaris, which in his mind indicated a very 

 wide separation between the Solaris and the meridionalis types. But it has been 

 found that the slender-armed individuals of Solaris and of the closely related pectinata 

 do not have this syzygy developed, but instead these ossicles are united by a synarthry 

 exactly as in meridionalis, though the union is much closer. The character upon 

 which Carpenter depended to separate the Solaris and the meridionalis types is there- 

 fore nonexistent, but it is the only one he ever mentioned. Miiller's cumingii, one 

 of his eastern species of the meridionalis type, has proved to be merely the young of 

 Comatula pectinata. 



In 1883 and again in 1884 in his memoirs on the myzostomes of the Blake and 

 Challenger expeditions von Graff gave this species from several localities under the 

 names (given him by Carpenter) Actinometra meridionalis, Act. meridionalis var. 

 quadrata, and Act. Udkei; Ms Act. meridionalis var. carinata is Leptonemaster venustus. 



In the Challenger report upon the stalked crinoids published in 1884 Carpenter 

 again discussed the occurrence of a synarthry, or, as he called it, a bifascial articu- 

 lation, between the elements of the IBr seiies and between the first 2 brachials in 



