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



220 fathoms ; bottom temperature, 52° F. Several specimens, with Myzostoma 

 alatum. 



Off Cape Sagres (near Cape St. Vincent) ; 45 fathoms. Several specimens. 



Off Carthagena ; 80 fathoms. Several specimens, with Myzostoma alatum. 



Bay of Benzert ; 50 to 100 fathoms. Abundant. 



Skerki Bank ; 30 to 120 fathoms. Abundant. 



Other Localities. — (Mediterranean) Naples ; Nice ; Marseilles. The Atlantic — the 

 Seine Bank, 88 fathoms (S.S. "Dacia"); off Cadiz ("Talisman"). 



Remarks. — This species was described by Muller so long ago as 1841, though for 

 a long time but little was known about it. The original specimens which Muller 

 examined had been obtained at Nice and at Naples, but for many years afterwards the 

 type was never recorded as having been found at either of these localities or anywhere 

 else. It was obtained off the coast of Tunis by the "Porcupine" Expedition of 1870, 

 though the fact was not recognised at the time ; and it was not till 1879 that much 

 attention was directed to it. Professor Marion had dredged it four years previously in 

 the harbour of Marseilles, and he gave a careful analysis of its peculiarities, which was 

 accompanied by some excellent figures. 1 



Meanwhile, in the year 1857, a Comatula, which had been dredged by Mr. MAndrew, 

 in the sound of Skye, was briefly described by Barrett 2 as new both to science and to 

 the British fauna. He at first called it Comatula woodwardii, but on finding that 

 this specific name had been previously employed by Edward Forbes for a fossil species 

 from the Crag, he proposed to call it Comatula celtica, under which name it is 

 recorded as having been dredged in the Minch by the " Lightning " and " Porcupine " 

 in the cruises of 1868-69. The original specimens to which Barrett gave the name 

 Comatula celtica disappeared for a considerable time, and it was not till they were 

 discovered in the collection of the British Museum by Professor F. J. Bell that the 

 true nature of his type was revealed. They are somewhat smaller than those which 

 had been obtained in the Minch by Mr. Gwjm Jeffreys, and by the " Lightning " and 

 " Porcupine," and had been generally referred to Antedon celtica. But during the 

 next twenty years neither Barrett nor any British zoologist seems to have thought of 

 comparing them with the second Mediterranean species of Antedon, the first of which 

 (Antedon rosacea) is abundant on the British coasts ; while the examples of Antedon 

 celtica, which were dredged in abundance on the Tunis coast in 1870, were noticed by 

 Sir Wyville Thomson 3 in the following passage : — " Many examples of the form 

 known to continental naturalists under the name A. mediterraneus, Lam., sp., were 



1 Draguages au large de Marseille, Ann. d. Sci. Nat., 1879, ser. 6, t. viii. pp. 40-45, pi. xviii. 



2 On two species of Echinodermata new to the Fauna of Great Britain, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1857, ser. 2, 

 vol. xix. pp. 32, 33, pi. vii. fig. 1. 



3 Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1872, vol. vii. p. 765. 



