REPORT ON THE CRINOIDEA. 341 



points from the types of Comatula parvicirra. and Comatula timorensis, so that I was 

 for a long time inclined to regard it as specifically distinct ; but I have at last been 

 obliged to abandon this view, and now consider the type as another variety of Actino- 

 metra parvicirra. 



Grube's description of his Comatula mertensi 1 only differs from those of Comatula 

 parvicirra and Comatula timorensis in one essential point. He states that there are 

 but " 2 Radialia, das Axillare mit Syzygium." Were this really the case, his type would 

 be most closely allied to Actinometra distincta of the Typica-growp. But, having been 

 enabled by the kindness of Professor Schneider, Grube's successor at Breslau, to examine 

 the types of this species for myself, I can state positively that there are three radials 

 with a bifascial articulation between the second and third, as in most Comatulse ; while 

 in all other respects the characters of the type are those of Actinometra parvicirra, and 

 Grube's name is therefore reduced to the rank of a synonym. 



During his residence in the Philippine Islands, Professor Semper collected several 

 examples of an Actinometra with thirteen to thirty-nine arms, on which, believing it to 

 be new to science, he bestowed the MS. name armata. This name was employed by 

 myself in a couple of anatomical papers, 2 though I subsequently found reason to replace 

 it by polymorpha? when giving a detailed description of the type, which did not appear 

 to me to be absolutely identical with the Vavao variety of Actinometra parvicirra. 

 Further experience, however, has convinced me that the two forms cannot be separated 

 specifically, and I must also refer to the same variable type the dry specimen in the 

 Hamburg Museum which I have noticed as Actinometra meyeri. 4 The same may be said 

 of the Actinometra annulata of Bell, 5 in whose diagnosis I can find no single point of 

 specific value by which this type can be distinguished from the Actinometra polymarpha 

 which I had described some years previously, and had subsequently referred to Actino- 

 metra parvicirra, Miill., sp.; 6 while as Bell gave no hint of his views respecting 

 the relationship of his new species, his reasons for establishing it are somewhat 

 obscure. 



Some of the specimens which have been distributed by the Godeffroy Museum under 

 the name Actinometra mutabilis, Liitken, MS., must also be referred to Actinometra 

 parvicirra, e.g., No. 6146, from Moreton Bay, Fiji. There is a tridistichate individual 

 from the Nicobar Islands which I found under this name in the Copenhagen Museum, and 

 I subsequently saw a sinidar form at Vienna. The arm-joints are rather long in both 

 cases, and without making a renewed examination of the specimens I should not like to 



1 53e Jahresber. der Schlesisch. Gesellsch.f. Vaterl. Cult, 1875, p. 74. 



2 Journ. ofAnat. and Phys., 1876, vol. x. p. 582 ; vol. xi. p. 91. 



3 Trans. Linn. Soc. Land. (Zool.), ser. 2, 1877, [1879], p. 50. 

 1 Journ. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Zool.), 1882, vol. xvi. p. 525. 



6 Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1882, p. 535. 



Notes from the Ley den Museum, 1881, vol. iii. p. 204. 



