38 



ECHINOIDEA. II. 



the scrobicular area. Miliary tubercles are scarce, the primary ones leaving but little room for them. 

 Perhaps these curious small specimens represent merely an individual abnormality; from the few 

 small naked tests to hand it is impossible to decide the question. 



In his Note sur le genre Echinocyamus ' Lambert calls attention to the fact that the 

 species figured under the name of Echinocyamus bv van Phelsum 2 are not of the flat form to 

 which the name is now applied, but of the high form which is designated by the name Fibularia 

 Lamarck. Accordinglv these two names should be exchanged and used in a way contrary to what 

 has for so very long been the general use. Pour rejeter mes conclusions il faudrait a la fois attribuer 

 seulement a Leske, et malgre mi, la paternite du genre Echinocyamus, prendre pour type de ce genre 

 tine forme que le savant commentateur de Klein n'y rattachait que d'une facon accessoire et exclure 

 du genre Fibularia la seule espece authentique que Lamarck y ait placee. Triple resultat qui me 

 parait inadmissible. (Op. cit). Cotteau' objects thereto that, since the specimens of v. Phelsum 

 had been collected in America and the Adriatic Gulf, flat forms must have been among his species , 

 as des Fibularia, propres a la mer des Indes, n'ont jamais ete rencontres sur les cotes de l'Amerique 

 et encore moins dans le golfe Adriatique, ou abondent les Echinocyamus . Further, the figures given 

 by v. Phelsum laissent assurement a desirer; dans le grossissement elles sont pour la plttpart ren- 

 flees d'une maniere exageree». Autant il nous parait necessaire, lorsque les faits sont positifs et 



indiscutables, de revenir an prmcipe de ranteriorite, qui doit toujours etre respecte, autant il serait 

 daugereux, qttand la question est dottteuse et sttjette a controverse, d'adopter des modifications qui 

 n'auraient d'atttre resultat que d'apporter tine grande perturbation dans la nomenclature et de compliquer 

 la synonymie . Also de Loriol** agrees with Cotteau in this question, and I for my part cannot 

 see, but that Cotteau and de Loriol are right. The figures of v. Phelsum are, indeed, so bad and 

 quite unlike either the flat or the high form, that they seem to me quite insufficient to support 

 such an extremely unhappy change of names. The fact that some of his specimens came from the 

 Adriatic is a proof that the flat form was among his species , and some of the figures also seem to 

 represent this flat form. The figures in the two first columns are indeed, in my opinion, much more 

 like the flat forms (except the two first figures, which are, however, still less like the elongated Fibii- 

 iaria-iorms); those in the third column (side views) are somewhat more like the high form, though 

 always very badly representing the true shape of the test of the high forms; the figures of the end- 

 views of all his 14 « species are so very much alike that it would be impossible to point out which belong 

 to the flat and which to the high form. Lambert, indeed, thinks that all his figures represent only 

 fourteen scarcely different specimens of a single species. After all it seems to me that the only thing 

 which is certain in this question is, that the flat form is represented among van Ph els urns species, 

 and being from the Adriatic Sea (as van Phelsum himself states p. 36) it must even be Echinocya- 

 mus pusillus, the only species found there. Whether the high form is really represented by any of his 

 species must remain doubtful, though by a mere glance at his figures one might at first be induced 



1 Bull. Soc. geol. de France. 3 Ser. XIX. 1891. p. 749. 



2 Brief aan Cornelius Nozemau over de gewelw-slekkeu of Zee-Egelu. 177). 



3 Paleontologie Fraucaise. Terrain Tertiaire. II. Hchinides. 1894. p. 349. 



4 Notes pour servir a l'etude des Echinodermes. V. 1897. p. S. 



