REPORT ON THE ASTEROIDEA. 411 



Genus Nardoa, Gray, emend. 



Linckia (pars), Miiller and Troschel, Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1840, April, p. 103. 



Nardoa, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1840, Dec, vol. vi. p. 286. 



Gomophia, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1840, Dec, vol. vi. p. 286. 



Scyiaster (pars), Miiller and Troschel, System der Asteriden, 1842, p. 34. 



Ophidiaster (pars), Miiller and Troschel, System der Asteriden, 1842, p. 28. 



Scytaster (pars), Lutken, Videnskab. Medd. naturh. Foren. i KjVbenhavn, 1S64, p. 163. 



The limits of the genus to which I have restored Gray's name of Nardoa are the same 

 as those recognised by Perrier under the name of Scytaster. I fail to see the justice of 

 the grounds on which Gray's name has been ignored by preceding w T riters. The following 

 statements give the history of the case. In 1834 Nardo 1 established the genus Linckia, 

 including in it three species, Linckia typus, Linckia franciscus, Linckia variolosa (err. 

 typ. for variolata). In 1835 Agassiz' 2 maintained the genus exactly as named and 

 constituted by Nardo. In April 1840 Miiller and Troschel 3 correctly discerned that the 

 last of the three species above mentioned (Linckia variolata) represented a different 

 generic type from the other two ; but they erroneously referred Linckia typus (and 

 subsequently in 18 42 Linckia franciscus) to the genus Ophidiaster established by Agassiz 

 in 1835, leaving only Linckia variolata in the genus Linckia, which they modified (by 

 implication) for the reception of the form now known as Fromia milleporella. In 

 December 1840 Gray 4 published the concluding part of his Synopsis of the Genera and 

 Species of Starfish, and in this work the genus Linckia of Nardo is maintained, and the 

 two species Linckia typus and Linckia franciscus duly referred to it. For the third 

 species mentioned by Nardo, " Linckia " variolata, Gray established a new genus under 

 the name of Nardoa. This course was perfectly correct and justifiable, and there could 

 be no doubt or possible ambiguity about the type, as the species had been known and 

 figured for more than a century. 



In 1842 Midler and Troschel, in their classical work, System der Asteriden, unfortu- 

 nately ignored altogether these clearly established genera, discarded Linckia as restricted 

 by themselves two years previously, and proposed a new name, Scytaster, for a genus, the 

 type of which was the Nardoa variolata of Gray (the Linckia variolata of Nardo), and 

 associated with it species w T hich are now recognised as the representatives of two other 

 genera. This step appears to me to have been altogether unwarrantable. 



Liitken 5 in 1864 and 1871 limited the scope of the genus Scytaster, and Perrier 6 still 

 further in 1875. Scytaster as now understood is quite different in its scope from the 



1 De Asteriis, Okeris Isis, 1834, Heft vii. p. 717. 



2 Mem. Soc. Sci. Nat. Neuchatel, t. i. p. 191. 



3 Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin. April 1840, p. 103. 



4 Ann. and Mag. Hist, vol. vi. p. 284. 



6 Videnskab. Medd. naturh. Foren. i KMenhavn, for 1864, p. 163; for 1871, p. 279. 

 6 Revis. Stell. Mus., p. 156 (Archives de \&ool. expir., 1875, t. iv. p. 420) 



