6 THE AMERICAN ARBACIA 



b. Arbacia punctulata 



The name of the genus, Arbacia, was given in 1835 by John Edward 

 Gray, who removed it from the genus Echinus in which Linneus ( 1 758) 

 had included all the 1 7 species of sea urchins. The name, according 

 to L. Agassiz in his Momenclator ^oologicus (i 842-1 846) has no special 

 derivation but is a "vox euphon". Bell (1889) and Mortensen (1935) 

 call it a "nonsense" name, having no significance. The name was 

 probably derived from Arbaces (reigned 876-848 B.C.) who was, 

 according to some historians (e.g., Ctesias'), the founder and first king 

 of the Medean Empire which was started by the rebellion of the 

 Medean general, Arbaces, against Sardanapalus, the last of the Assy- 

 rian kings. The Medean dynasty lasted from 876 B.C. until its over- 

 throw by Cyrus in 559 B.C. It seems likely that the name was sug- 

 gested to Gray by the historical poem Sardanapalus by Lord Byron, in 

 which Arbaces is a Medean satrap aspiring to the throne of Sardana- 

 palus; this poem was published in 1821, a few years before Gray used 

 the name. Another genus taken from Echinus at the same time by 

 Gray was Salenia, possibly suggested by another character, Salemenes, 

 in the same poem. An Egyptian character named Arbaces also occurs 

 in Bulwer Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii, but this book was published 

 Sept. 1834, after Agassiz (Feb. 1834) had used Gray's name, so that 

 this was probably not the source of the name Arbacia. 



Arbacia just missed being called Echinocidaris, a name given by Des 

 Moulins independently and at almost the same time as Gray's Arbacia. 

 Gray's paper On the genera distinguishable in Echinus was read April 28, 

 1835, ^^^ published July 17, 1835 in the Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society of London (see Bell, 1889). The name had been adopted by 

 L. Agassiz in his Prodrome which was read in February 1834 and 

 published in July 1836; Agassiz had known of Gray's nomenclature 

 through correspondence with him in 1834 before its publication. Des 

 Moulins, not aware of Gray's work, published his Etudes sur les £chinides 

 August 15, 1835, (dated July 1835), and gave the name Echinocidaris 

 to what Gray called Arbacia. There seems no doubt that Gray's Arbacia 

 has precedence over Des Moulins' Echinocidaris, and will not be changed 

 as have so many other names of sea urchins. The altercation as to 

 priority may be followed by reading L. Agassiz's Monographies d'£chino- 

 derm'es, 1838, p. 17, and Des MouHns' Etudes, 1835-1837, p. 207, and 

 the short note of Bell (1889). 



' Herodotus (484-424 B.C.) does not mention Arbaces, and according to some modern 

 historians Arbaces was purely legendary. 



