REPORT ON THE CRINOIDEA. 279 



conclusions, however, are chiefly based on the very large series of specimens belonging to 

 the Solaris-group which were collected by H.M.S. "Alert" at various localities in Torres 

 Strait and on the Queensland coast. They are now in the British Museum, and have 

 been placed unreservedly at my disposal by Professor F. J. Bell, to whom my best 

 thanks are due for the ready way in which he has always done bis utmost to facilitate 

 my work. 



Two years after Midler first described Actinometra imperialis from his own examina- 

 tion of the Vienna specimen with an excentric mouth, he gave a description of Comatula, 

 or as he called it, Alecto Solaris, which had been drawn up by Dr. Troschel as the result 

 of his own examination on Midler's behalf of the Lamarckian types of Comatula Solaris 

 at Paris. Midler knew nothing about the structure of the disk in these last, nor even 

 that the two outer radials are united by syzygy ; and it was not till he subsequently 

 visited Paris himself that he found Lamarck's specimens to be both specifically and 

 generically identical with that which he had previously called Actinometra impenalis. 

 He therefore withdrew the specific name imperialis, replacing it by Solaris, Lamarck, 

 which he redescribed. 1 All subsequent writers have accepted this identification, with 

 the exception of Dujardin and Hupe, who described the two forms, not only as distinct 

 species, but also as distinct genera. 2 



The " Neue Beitrage " in which Troschel's diagnosis of Alecto Solaris was published, 

 also contained a careful description, by Midler himself, of a specimen in the Retzian 

 collection at Lund which had been referred by Retzius to the Asterias pectinata of 

 Linnaeus, an identification which was subsequently adopted in Gmelin's edition of the 

 Systema Naturae. Milder 3 described it under the name of Asterias pectinata, Retzius, 

 recognising, however, its generic identity with his own Actinometra imperialis, though 

 he still regarded the latter as distinct from Comatula Solaris, Lamarck. But after 

 examining Lamarck's type, he united the two species and also came to the conclusion that 

 Asterias pectinata, Retzius, " scheint eine Farbenvarietat dieser Art zu sein .... Die 

 Farbenzeichnung ist aber sehr eigenthiimlich. Auf der Riickseite der Arme sehr 

 regelmassig zwei schwarze Langslinien. die in der Mitte durch eine helle Linie getrennt 

 sind." 4 



I certainly cannot attach any specific importance to this peculiar marking, which I 

 have seen in several individuals from very different localities, amongst others in that 

 from Hong Kong which served as the basis of my own redescription of Actinometra 

 Solaris in 1882. 6 In this form, however, there are over twenty cirrus-joints. Midler 

 gave the number as twenty in the Vienna specimen, while Troschel's description 



& 



1 Abhandl. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1847 [1849], p. 248. 2 Op. cit., pp. 200, 209. 



3 Archivf. Naturgesch., 1843, Jahrg. is. Bd. i. p. 133. 



4 Abhandl. d. k. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1847 [1849], p. 249. 

 6 Journ. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.), 1882, vol. xvi. p. 514. 



' Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1841, p. 181. 



