96 " ENDEAVOUR " SCIENTIFIC RESULTS. 



thousand four hundred species of Ophiurans known and that 

 only twenty-six occur in the " Endeavour " collection, it is 

 remarkable that twenty-nine species of Echini occur, with 

 fewer than five hundred species known. Of these twenty- 

 nine species, five are here described for the first time and five 

 others are recorded for the first time from Australia. The 

 most remarkable specimen is undoubtedly the adult indi- 

 vidual of Echinus horridus, a species previously known from 

 off the coast of ChiH, but the fine series of Prionocidaris 

 australis, the handsome new Coelopleurus and the new Maretia 

 are worthy of particular mention. Up to the present time 

 about sixty species of Echini have been listed from Australia, 

 but wrong iclentifications have been so numerous and mis- 

 leading, the real number of species is very uncertain. 

 Probably, including the ten here added to the list, there 

 are at least sixty Australian Echini occurring in less than 

 three hundred fathoms, thirty-five of which are pecuHar to 

 AustraUa. 



Family CIDARID^. 

 Genus Phyll acanthus, Brandt. 



As regards the generic name Phyllacanthus, I have given 

 fresh and careful attention to Brandt's paper, and I see no 

 ground for rejecting his subgenera. Lambert and Thieryi 

 have argued very strongly that these groups are invahd, but 

 there seems to me a fundamental error in the argument 

 which quite vitiates it. They assume that Brandt is revising 

 and classifying all Echini, and hence \vhen he gives three 

 subgenera under the genus Echinus they assume that all 

 the species of Echinus are to be placed in these three sub- 

 genera, and, of course, one would then liave to be a synonym 

 of Echinus. But such is not Brandt's intention. He is 

 simply giving a classification of the forms noted by Mertens 

 in his voyage ; occasionally other species are mentioned for 

 illustrative purposes, but there is no attempt to group all 

 the known Echini. Under the circumstances, then, I do not 

 see Avhy Brandt's subgenera are not perfectly valid, certainly 

 as much so as any genera of Echini that were proposed prior 

 to 1846. Particularly in the case of Phyllacanthus, Brandt's 

 course is clear; he had a large cidarid from the Bonin Islands 

 to deal with ; its peculiarities were obvious and are fairly 

 well stated ; for it he proposed a subgenus of Cidarites which 

 he called Phyllacanthus, at the same time designating the 

 species as P. dubia. The fact that he was planning for a full 



1. Lambert and Thiery— Bull. Soc. Sci. Nat. Haute Marne, vi., 23, 1909. 



