F.CIIINOIDF.A. II. 



J 73 



oing og Havfiske. 1906. p. 82) certainly deserves to be named as a distinct variety; I propose to name 

 it var. fuscus n. var. As pointed ont (loc. cit.) it differs from the typical form in the lower form of 

 the test and in the uniformly red coloured spines, the spines of the typical form being generally violet 

 at the point, white in the lower part (occasionally the spines are green). According to Appeilof the 

 spines of this variety may vary considerably in colour, from beautifully cinnabar-red to green; in all 

 the specimens seen by me they are uniformly red. The spines are somewhat longer than is generally 

 the case in the typical form. The pedicellarise do not show any differences from those of the typical 

 form. The measurements given here show the considerable difference in height between the variety 

 and the typical form, though there is certainly some variation in this regard also. 



Diameter Height Longest spines 



Typical form T,i mm 22 ,nm 8"5 mm 



Var. f us ens T,i mm i6 mm 10— n r 



i-mm 



This variety seems to be found exclusively in the North Sea. The specimens in our Museum 

 are from the following localities: 55 30' N. 1° E. 75 M., 56° 40' N. 2 16' E. 73 M. and 57 55' N. i° 20' E. 

 105 M. — It is evidently the same form which is mentioned by Th. Scott (Notes on some Scottish 

 Echinodermata. Ann. Scott. Nat Hist. 1892. p. 49), who also gives a figure of the naked test (PI. II. 

 Fig. 1). He does not mention the colour of the spines. — In a specimen of this variety, which I exa- 

 mined in the Berlin Museum, the spiues on the buccal plates were partly transformed into sphseridise, 

 all transitional stages being found between common spines aud true sphseridice. In my paper «Echi- 

 noderms from East Greenland* (Medd. om Gronland. XXIX. 1903. p. 77—78) I have taken the occasion 

 to mention that and given some figures thereof. 



In the beautiful work of J. Lambert: ^Description des Echinides fossiles de la Province de 

 Barcelone. II— III. Echinides des Terrains miocene et pliocene ,' which I received after the printing 

 of the main part of the present work, so that it could not be taken into consideration there, some 

 important critical remarks are given, on which a few words may be said here. 



The eenus Pareehiuus. established by me in Part I of this work for ^Eehimis;, miliaris, micro- 

 tuberculatus and angulosus, is not accepted by Lambert, wdio maintains that the \\a\\\ft Psammccliiiius 

 must be retained for this group, whereas the name Anapesus Holmes has to be used for the group 

 to which I have limited the genus Psammechinus, viz. P. variegatus (or Blainvillci Desm., as Lam- 

 bert shows to be its right name), scmituberculattcs etc. Lambert's reasons for maintaining this are, 

 that the older authors have taken miliaris as the type of the genus Psammechinus, and that variegatus 

 (Blainvillei) and the species of that group are not quite in accordance with the original diagnosis. 

 To this may be remarked that none of the previous authors have understood the real characters of 

 the genera of the Eehinida and allied groups. 2 I was the first to give exact diagnoses of these 



1 Mem. Soc. Geol. de France. XIV. 1906. 



2 Even Lambert himself has not the right conception of these genera. Ce qui distingue Psammechinus*, he says 

 (p. 67. note), «ce n'est pas seulement la presence de plaquettes imbriquees sur la membrane buccale, e'est la forme de son 

 peristome plus large, subdecagonal, e'est surtout l'homogeueite de ses majeures ambulacraires, toutes tuberculiferes, tandis 

 que chez Echinus adulte les majeures alternent, successivement tuberculiferes et granuliferes, comine celles de Toxopneustes*- 

 This is not correct; several species of Echinus, e. g. clegans, Alexandri a. o. have a primary tubercle on every ambulacral 

 plate — but scarcely anybody, who knows these species in nature, not from literature alone, would think of excluding them 





'* 



