the Genus Comatula. 297 



The evidence of pentacrinus being the young of comatula, rests 

 upon a comparison of the individuals figured S, 4, and 5, 6, on 

 Plate 1 1, the former being an advanced pentacrinus just beginning 

 to form pinnae, and the latter the youngest comatula ever taken 

 by dredging. In the pentacrinus, it is to be observed that the arms 

 are just beginning to form pinna? towards their extremities, that 

 they have the sulphur-yellow colour and dark marginal spotting 

 observable in the other, which shews, in like manner, that the 

 upper pinnae are first formed ; here. Figs. 5, 6, we have about 

 three pair of pinnae, with two intervening articulations of the arm 

 between each, then three articuli (counting from the apex down- 

 wards), and an additional pair of pinnae just beginning to sprout. 

 From this to the base of the arm are five more articuli, as yet 

 without any pinnae, the base of each arm on either side present- 

 ing one long pinna appropriated to the service of the mouth. On 

 turning the animal over, the dorsal cirri are found to have in- 

 creased from five to nine, several of them presenting the appear- 

 ance of recent formation. Individuals a little older are compa- 

 ratively common, in which the pinnae are complete, and from this 

 period they appear to form regularly at the apex of the arm, as 

 this goes on extending in length. These small comatulas still retain 

 the original sulphur-yellow colour towards the apices of the arms, 

 the lower part and body assuming the characteristic red of the adult 

 comatula. From observations repeatedly made, I think it most pro- 

 bable that the comatulae attain their full growth in one year, so as 

 to be in a condition to propagate their kind the summer follow- 

 ing that of their birth. At that time (viz. May and June) these 

 full grown individuals have the membranous expansion inside 

 each of the pinnae, considerably extended, at least as far as the 

 fifteenth or twentieth pair, these, which are the matrices or con- 

 ceptacula, at length shew themselves distended with the ova, 

 which in July, and even earlier, make their exit through a round 

 aperture on the fascial side of each conceptaculum, still, how- 

 ever, adhering together in a roundish cluster of about a hundred 

 each, by means of the extension and connection of their umbili- 

 cal cords. By what means these ova are dispersed, or how they 

 become attached to the stems and branches of corallines, remain 

 to be discovered ; but it is strongly to be suspected that the ani- 

 mal is gifted with the power of placing them in appropriate si- 



