592 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Pieter Faure station 18282; Simons Bay, False Cape; 15-18 meters; rocks [H. L. 

 Clark, 1923] (3, M. C. Z., 741; South African Mus.). 



Gauss; Simons Bay; July 15-16, 1903 [A. H. Clark, 1915] (2, Berl. M.). 



Challenger; Simons Bay; 18-36 meters [P. H. Carpenter, 1888; A. H. Clark, 1911, 

 1913] (1, B. M.). 



No locality [A. H. Clark, 1913] (1, B. M.). 



Geographical range. South Africa, from the Tugela River, Natal, to the Cape 

 of Good Hope and Simons Bay. 



Bathymetrical range. From the shore line down to 46 meters; the average of 5 

 definite records is 27 meters. 



History. This species was originally described in 1843 by Johannes Muller 

 from a number of specimens in the Museum of the Academy of Sciences (now the 

 Riks-Museum) at Stockholm which had been collected by Dr. J. A. Wahlberg at Port 

 Natal (now Durban). It was redescribed and discussed at some length by Muller 

 in 1849. 



Dujardin and Hup6 in 1862 published a translation of Muller's original descrip- 

 tion. In their monograph they gave a list of names which they found with specimens 

 in the Paris Museum, among which was Comatula coccodistoma. I found this name 

 with 2 specimens of Comanthus wahlbergii which had been collected by M. Reynaud 

 at the Cape of Good Hope in 1829, and 1 specimen of Capillaster coccodistoma collected 

 at Madagascar by M. Rousseau in 1841. 



In 1869 Prof. E. von Martens, on the strength of Muller's description, noted this 

 species from Natal. 



In 1879 Dr. P. H. Carpenter identified wahlbergii as an Actinometra, and in 

 another paper mentioned its occurrence in the Challenger collection. 



Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell in 1882 gave a specific formula for this type, which was 

 emended early in 1883 by Carpenter. 



In the Challenger report on the comatulids published in 1888 Carpenter wrote 

 that two years after making his first communication on the subject of the species of 

 comatulids Muller described a 20-armed form from Natal in the Stockholm Museum 

 under the name of Alecto wahlbergii. It has no IIIBr series, and further differs in 

 several minor points from the types of Comatula parvicirra and Comatula timorensis, 

 so that he was for a long time inclined to regard it as specifically distinct. But he 

 said that at last he had been obliged to abandon this view, and now considered the 

 type as another variety of parvicirra. He therefore listed the single specimen secured 

 by the Challenger at Simons Bay under Actinometra parvicirra, and also mentioned 

 the Cape of Good Hope and Port Natal among the localities where this form is found. 



In 1905 Bell recorded parvicirra from various localities in South Africa, and also 

 inadvertently included specimens of wahlbergii under Antedon capensis ( = Tropio- 

 metra carinata). 



In March, 191 1,1 gave the characteristic features of wahlbergii in detail and pointed 

 out that this form is very sharply separated from parvicirra, not even belonging in 

 the same specific group, but having its closest affinity with trichoptera of southern 

 Australia, its presence at the Cape indicating a connection between the crinoid 

 faunas of these two localities similar to that shown in many other groups. In the 



