REPORT ON THE CRINOIDEA. 201 



for them ; and the identity of his Alecto carinata with the Comatula carinata from 

 Mauritius, which was described by Lamarck 1 in the following year must therefore remain 

 uncertain. Lamarck referred to Antcdon gorgonia, de Freminville, as a possible 

 synonym of his species, and from this one may perhaps conclude that he had been 

 unable to get access to de Freminville's type. We have seen that he had ignored de 

 Freminville's generic name Antcdon, which had five years' precedence over Comatula, 

 and that his definition of this latter type differed but little from that of Antedon 

 which had been previously given by de Freminville. But the latter author gave no 

 figure nor formal description of Antedon gorgonia as distinguished from his definition 

 of the genus ; and if Lamarck was unable to see de Freminville's original specimen we 

 can understand his uncertainty respecting the possible identity of Comatula carinata 

 and Antedon gorgonia. 



Lamarck's species was redescribed by Midler, and his diagnosis of it was copied by 

 Dujardin and Hupe in 1862. A few years afterwards Dr. Liitken gave the MS. name 

 Antedon braziliensis to a type which had been obtained at Rio Janeiro and has since 

 proved to be very abundant on the Brazilian coast at the Abrolhos Islands and also at 

 Bahia. Examples of it with Liitken's name attached were distributed to various 

 museums, and in 1867 the name Antedon braziliensis appeared in a comparative list of 

 the Echinoderms from the east and west coasts of Tropical America which was drawn up 

 by Verrill. 2 The same author 3 in the following year doubtfully referred to Antedon 

 diibenii, Bohlsche, another example of this type from the Brazilian coast, which he 

 regarded, however, as different both from Antedon braziliensis, Liitken, MS., and from 

 the Antedon carinata of Mauritius and Zanzibar. The difference, however, seems to be 

 chiefly one of coloration, and it is now practically certain that Yerrill's and Liitken's 

 types alike are identical with the species from the Indian Ocean. Pourtales 4 wrote 

 as follows in 1878 : — " A species common on the coast of Brazil answers to the description 

 of the Comatula carinata Lamk. (Leach sp.). It is quoted as from Mauritius, and the 

 museum has specimens from Zanzibar differing only in some minor details from the 

 Brazilian ones." Rathbun, 5 writing a few months later, referred to the Brazilian form as 

 Antedon carinatus (?), and made some comparisons between it and some examples from 

 Zanzibar, concluding with the remark that " the study of a large series of specimens 

 would probably serve to unite the BrazUian with the East African species beyond all doubt." 



I was fortunately able to carry out this study in the autumn of 1880, when a careful 

 examination of the material which I found in several continental museums, from a con- 



1 Op. cit., p. 534. 



2 Trans. Connect. Acad. Arts and ScL, 1867, vol. i. p. 341. 



3 Ibid., p. 365. 



4 Reports on the dredging operations of the U.S. Coast Survey Steamer " Blake." Corals and Crinoids, Bull. Mus. 

 Comp. Zool., 1879, vol. v. No. 9, p. 214. 



5 A list of Brazilian Echinoderms with Notes on their Distrihution, &c, Trans. Connect. Acad., 1879, vol. v. p. 156. 



(zool. chall. bxp. — part lx. — 1887.) Ooo 26 



