344 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER 



Valenciennes to a genus of fishes. Those who relinquish the claim of Linck's name of 

 Pentaceros for this genus of starfishes on account of 1733 being a pre-Linnean date, and 

 on the supposition that the name does not reappear in literature in connection with this 

 group of animals until Gray's time, seem to me to take a most arbitrary view of the 

 requirements of nomenclature, and one which I do not consider justifiable in the present 

 case. To those who still adhere to the letter rather than the spirit of this canon of name- 

 priority, I would point out that Pentaceros was used by Schulze 1 exactly in Linck's sense 

 in 1760, after ten editions of the Systema Naturae had been published, and that it was 

 also used by Schroter 2 in 1782. There is consequently no valid reason whatever for 

 relinquishing this well-known name, and the onus of employing a term already appro- 

 priated will rest with the ichthyologists. 



Cliorology of the Genus Pentaceros. 



a. Geographical distribution : — 



Atlantic : Three species between the parallels of 30° N. and 20° S. (A fourth 

 species is doubtfully reputed to be from the Adriatic, but its occurrence has 

 never been verified.) 



* Pentaceros dorsatus, off the Cape Verde Islands. Pentaceros 

 forcipulosus, off the Coast of Guinea (West Africa). Pentaceros 

 reticularis, from the West Indies and Brazil, and extending to 

 Freemantle, west coast of Australia. Pentaceros carinatus was 

 recorded with doubt to be from the Adriatic, but no second example 

 of the species has since been found. 



Indian and Southern Oceans : Fourteen or sixteen species between the parallels 

 of 30° N. and 40° S. 



Pentaceros mammillatus and Pentaceros tuberculatus, from the 

 Red Sea, the former being also found at Mauritius, and the latter off 

 the East Coast of Africa. (I have a strong impression that Pentaceros 

 tuberculatus is only a synonym, or at most a variety, of Pentaceros 

 mammillatus.) Pentaceros hiulcus, Pentaceros turritus, and Pen- 

 taceros muricatus, off Mauritius and Zanzibar, the last-named also off 

 Madagascar and the Seychelle Islands ; both Pentaceros turritus and 

 Pentaceros muricatus extend into the Eastern Archipelago, the latter 



1 Betrachtung der versteinerten Seesterne u. ihre Theile. Warschau u. Dresden, 1760, p. 50. 



2 Musei Gottwaldiani Testaceorum, Stellarum marinarum et Coralliorum quae supersimt Tabulae (Die 

 Conchylien, Seesterne und Meergewachse der ehemaligen Gottwaldtischen Naturaliensanimlung nach den 

 vorhandenen neun und vierzig Kupfertafeln mit einer kurzen Beschreibung begleitet von Johann Samuel 

 Schroter). Niirnberg, 1782, p. 58. 



