REPORT ON THE ORINOIDEA. 303 



both the generic names Cenocrimis and Neocrinus and described the type as Pentacrinus 

 aster ia, Linn., as Liitken had previously done. 



It was clearly right to return to tlie specific name employed by Linuasus, although he 

 was utterly at fault as regards the generic position of the type. But every writer on the 

 subject, myself included, has used a wrong termination to the specific name. Linnaeus 

 wrote Isis asteria, which appears as Isis asterias in Miiller's edition of the Systema 

 Naturae (Bd. ii. p. 742), published at Nuremberg in 1775; and this has been quoted 

 by de Blainville and others. But when the sj^ecies came to be referred to Pentacrinus, and 

 the Linnean specific name was restored in place of caput- Medtt see, it should have been 

 written Pentacrinus asterius, the expression Pentacrinus asteria, used by Liitken, Thom- 

 son, and myself being a false cancord ; for it is evident that the etymology of Linnaeus's 

 name Isis asteria is the adjective darepLo?, starry, and not the noun Asteria, cat's eye. 



I am indebted for this tardy correction to the critical acumen of my friend Prof F. 

 Jeffrey Bell. But as it did not reach me till all the plates illustrating the type and most 

 of the morphological section of the Eeport had been printed off, I have been unable to 

 avail myself of it as fully as I should like to have done. 



It is somewhat curious that this species, which for the greater part of a century was 

 the only known living representative of the genus, should be comparatively so little 

 known at the present time. But one specimen of it was ever dredged by the " Blake," 

 whereas Pentacrinus decorus was obtained by the hundred ; and even stem-fragments 

 were very rarely met with. One specimen was taken by Caj^tain Cole of the telegraj^h 

 steamer " Investigator," in 320 fathoms off Saba Island ; and it is now in. the zoological 

 collection of the Natural History Museum. The agents of Mr. Damon of Weymouth 

 have been successful in procuring several excellent specimens, which have been bought by 

 different museums, but I have not been able to examine more than a very few of them. 



The preceding description is based upon the characters presented Ijy the following 

 examples of the type : — A. Miller's original specimen from Nevis, now in the geological 

 department of the Natural History Museum. B. One dry specimen and two others in 

 spirit, all in the zoological de^jartment of the same museum. C. One dry specimen in 

 the Hunterian collection of the Royal College of Surgeons. D. Two dry specimens 

 obtained by Dr. Carpenter and Sir Wyville Thomson from Mr, Damon of Wejinouth. I 

 have not made a personal inspection of Guettard's original specimen, but when Mr. Percy 

 Sladen was in Paris for the purpose of investigating the collection of Asterids in the 

 museum, he was permitted by Prof. Perrier to examine it on my belialf ; and from the 

 notes of its characters which he was kind enough to give me, together with the original 

 figures of Guettard, I have no doubt that it is a fairly normal specimen of the tj^e. 



Pentacrinus asterius is much more robust than any of the other recent species of the 

 genus, none of which have such wide stem-joints, though these are not so large as in some 

 fossil species. The stem also seems to grow to a greater length than that of any other recent 



