64 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



while he also gave the names Solanocrinus and Glenotremites to some other fossil forms 

 of which only parts of the calyx were preserved. Some of Goldfuss's species were made 

 the types of new genera by Agassiz, 1 and Miiller referred to them as follows in his first 

 communication to the Berlin Academy on the subject of the Crinoidea : 2 — ■ 



"Die ungestielten Crinoiden mit Armen bilden 3 Familien (l) Articulata, gen. 

 Comatula, Lam., und Comaster, Ag. (2) Costata mit schaligem gerippten Kelch und 

 entgegengesetzten Pinnulse, wovon sonst bei alien ubrigen Crinoiden kein Beispiel 

 vorkommt, gen. Saccocoma, Ag. (3) Tessellata, gen. Marsupites." 



The above passage must not be understood as meaning that " Articulata," Miiller, is 

 a synonym of " Comatulidae," d'Orbigny, and should therefore take precedence of it. For 

 there were Stalked as well as Unstalked Crinoidea Articulata and Crinoidea Tessellata ; 

 and in the subsequent memoir on Pentacrinus Miiller made these the two primary 

 divisions of the Crinoidea, altogether apart from the question of the presence or absence 

 of a stalk. But in his second preliminary communication 3 he made a passing reference 

 to " die in der Familie cler Comatulinen enthaltenen Gattungen Comatula und 

 Comaster," the latter genus being regarded by him as identical with Solanocrinus, 

 Goldfuss. 



Miiller never said anything more definite about the family Comatulinse, however, 

 though he recognised Alecto and Actinometra as two subgenera of Comatula, Lamarck. 

 The Stalked Crinoids remained in an equalhy chaotic condition for many years. But 

 about 1850 Bronn and d'Orbigny made separate attempts to class them into families. 

 The former author 4 established the family Astylidse, though without defining it, and 

 referred to it the recent Comatula and three fossil genera. Among these were Marsupites 

 and Saccocoma, both of which, as we have seen above, had been made the types of 

 separate families by Miiller. This was also clone by d'Orbigny, 6 who divided the Crinoidea 

 into ten families, one of which was the Comatulidse, and this name, or its shortened form 

 " Comatuke," has been in use for the family of the Feather-stars ever since, though the 

 number of genera referred to the family has varied enormously. 



D'Orbigny included in it the recent Comatula, Lamarck, and three other genera which 

 were based on the characters of various fossil species. None of these, however, are now 

 recognised ; and the same is true of a number of genera established by other palaeonto- 

 logists ; for with one exception all the true Comatulids which have been as yet discovered 

 in the fossil state can be referred either to de Freminville's genus Antedon, which has 

 priority over Comatula, or to Midler's subgenus Actinometra, which has gradually acquired 

 generic rank. The exception is the five-armed species from the Valangien of Switzerland, 



1 Mem. Soc. Sci. Nat. Neuchatel, 1835, t. i. p. 193. 



2 Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1840, p. 91. 



3 Ibid., 1841, p. 179. 



4 Lethasa Geognostica, 1851, Bd. i. Tb. 1, p. 23. 



6 Cours elementaire de Paleontologie et de Geologie stratigraphique, 1852, vol. ii. fasc. i. p. 138. 



