REPORT ON THE CR1NOIDEA. 287 



Asterias pectinata by Linnaeus, and the essential characters of the latter species were 

 described by both Retzius and Miiller before the latter author visited Paris and saw the 

 Lamarckian types for himself, so that his diagnosis of them did not appear till six years 

 after he had properly described Asterias pectinata. 1 



Dujardin and Hupe deserve the credit of having definitely restored Asterias 

 pectinata, Retzius, to specific rank on the basis of Midler's description of it, though they 

 erroneously state that it corresponds to Comatula pectinata and Comatula barbata of 

 other authors. 2 Both these names were given to varieties of the European Antedon 

 rosacea, which are altogether different from the type of Asterias pectinata from the 

 Indian seas in the Retzian collection at Lund. 



Remarks. — Little need be said about this species, as its essential characters have been 

 fully discussed already. The centro-dorsal rarely conceals the first radials entirely 

 (PI. LIII. fig. 15), and it is sometimes relatively smaller than in any other Comatula; 

 while each of the radial areas on its surface has a deep marginal hollow which corresponds 

 to one on the surface of the radial above it. 3 It thus shows an approximation towards 

 the characters of Actinometra typica and the other sj>ecies which have more or less 

 definite openings around the margin of the centro-dorsal (PI. LVII. fig. 1 ; PI. LXIII. 

 fig. 6 ; PI. LXV. figs. 1-6 ; PI. LXVII. fig. 1). The three Challenger specimens are 

 remarkable for having an interradial mouth, as it is radial in most examples of the 

 type that I have seen, just as in Actinometra Solaris. 



The Copenhagen Museum contains a specimen from Java which bears the MS. name 

 Actinometra affinis, Liitken. I was at first inclined to regard it as distinct from 

 Actinometra pectinata ; but since examining the " Alert " collection I have no doubt that 

 the two forms are identical. The Java specimen is remarkable for the carination of the 

 lower joints of the first pinnule, as in some individuals from Bohol in Semper's collection; 

 while it has eleven arms, owing to one of the normal second brachials being replaced by an 

 axillary, i.e., there are two distichals united by syzygy, just as in Actinometra paucicirra 

 (PI. LIV. figs. 1, 2). 



This, of course, is what might naturally be expected from the characters of the 

 type. 



1 Troschel's description of Alecto Solaris in 1843 omits all mention of the syzygies in the radials and lower brachials, 

 and so is useless for the recognition of the species ; while it appears two pages later than Miiller's more detailed descrip- 

 tion of Asterias pectinata, which noticed this point and also the presence of the keel on the second pinnule, of which 

 Troschel said nothing. 



2 Op. cil, p. 209. 



3 See Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.), ser. 2, 1879, pp. 67, 89-91, pi. v. figs. 6-9 ; pi. viii. figs. 5-8. 



