o 



REPORT ON THE CRINOIDEA. 333 



glass. The heads soon curled over and showed a decided disposition to drop off. At 

 a haul made soon after we got more, and being afraid to })ut so many of them in the 

 tank together I tried to delude the animals into the idea that they were in their native 

 temperature by putting them into ice-water. This worked well, although some of them 

 became exasperated, and shed some of their- arms. They lived in the ice-water two 

 hours, until I transferred them to the tank. They moved their arms one at a time. 

 Some of the lilies were white, some purple, some yellow ; the latter was the colour of 

 the smaller and more delicate ones." Mr. Alexander Agassiz^ records that " our collection 

 of Pentacrini is quite extensive ; we found them at Montserrat, St. Vincent, Grenada, 

 Guadeloupe, and Barbados, in several places, in such numbers that on one occasion we 

 T)rouo-ht up no less than one hundred and twenty -four at a single haul of the bar and 

 the tangles. We must, of course, have swept over actual forests of Pentacrini crowded 

 too-ether, much as we find the fossil Pentacrini on slabs. I have nothing to add to the 

 o-eneral description of then- movements given by Captain Sigsbee, with the exception of 

 their use of the cirri placed along the stem. These they move more rapidly than the 

 arms, and use them as hooks to catcli hold of neighbouring objects, and, on account of 

 their sharp extremities, they are well adapted to retain their hold. The stem itself 

 passes slowly from a rigid vertical attitude to a curved or even drooping position." 



Although the dredgings of the " Blake " have shown that Pentacrinus decorus is 

 extremely abundant in the neighbourhood of several of the West Indian Islands, it does 

 not appear to have been discovered till a century after Pentacrinus asterius. Its 

 distinctness from that type was first recognised by Mr. Damon of Weymouth, who 

 procured an example of it from the seas of the Outer Antilles. Its occurrence was 

 recorded liy the late Sir AVj^ille Thomson in a popular article on Sea Lilies, which 

 appeared in the Intellectual Observer for August 1864, Imt he published no further 

 description of it before his death. AVhen he first noted its discovery he seems to have 

 been unacquainted with the description of Pentacrinus milUeri by Oersted, published 

 six years previously; for he spoke of Pentacrinus asterius and Pentacrinus decorus as 

 the only two known living species of Stalked Crinoids. But in the following year^ he 

 referred to Pentacrinus mulleri as well, Liitken's Memoii- having appeared in the 

 interval ; so that he evidently regarded Pentacrinus decorus and Pentacrinus miilleri 

 as distinct species. 



Later on, however, as I have described above, he came to the conclusion that his 

 Pentacrinus decorus was identical with Oersted's type,^ and he seems to have held this 

 view till his death. For he wrote " Pentacmius mulleri, Oersted," on a copy of 

 PI. XXXIV. This represents a specimen which he had obtained from Sir- Eawson Rawson, 

 and it is totally different from Pentacrinus miilleri, as is evident from a glance at Liitken's 



1 Bull. Mus. Comp. Zobl, vol. v., No. 14, p. 296. - Phil. Trans., vol. civ., 18G5, p. 542. 



3 Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. vii. p. 76(5 ; ami The Depths of the Sea, p. 442. 



