34 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



meridionalis {Comactinia meridionalis), from the American coast of the Atlantic, 

 though it has subsequently been found that Mviller's Aledo ecMnoptera is also an 

 American form. 



In 1SG6 Williohn Bohlsche described as new a curious little comatulid from 

 the coast of Brazil which he had been unable to identify with any known form. He 

 called it, in comphmcnt to the justly famous Norwegian naturahst of that name, 

 Aniedon diihenii. This species has been the cause of considerable confusion; P. H. 

 Carpenter idenlifieil witli it a specimen which the Challenger dredged at Bahia, and 

 figured both this specimen and tlie type in the ClialUnger report on the "Comatula?." 

 The Challenger specimen is a young example of Tropiometra jncta, but the 13-pe 

 specimen obviously belongs to the Antedonida?, and to the genus Antedon. It is 

 only witliin the past year that this species has been rediscovered, the second known 

 specimen having been coUecled on the island of St. Thomas. 



It was in 1866 also tliat Prof. Sven Lov^n instituted the new genus Phanogenia 

 for tlie reception of a curious exocychc comatuUd from Singapore which differed 

 from all the other species then known in having the centrodoi-sal very much reduced, 

 in fact merely a small stellate plate, and quite without cirri. This form he called 

 Phanogenia typica {Comaster typlca). 



Two 3^eai-s aftenvards (1S6S) Professor Lov6n announced the startling discovery 

 of a recent cystid at Cape York, AustraUa, which subsequently proved to be nothing 

 but the detached disk of one of the Zj'^gometridse. This so-called Ilyponome sarsii 

 of Lov6n was the firet zygometrid known; but in the same year Prof. Carl Semper 

 introduced to science a second, the peculiar Ophiocrinus (Eudiocrinus) indivisus, 

 remarkable in possessing but 5 arms, whereas all the other comatuUds then kno'mi 

 had at least 10. 



The United States Coast Survey had been for some time engaged in a systematic 

 study of the marine conditions off the coast of the southern United States, and 

 Count L. F. de Pourtales was tlius enabled in 1868 to make known the interesting 

 Comaiula hrevipinna (.Crinometra brevipinna, the first known species of the Charito- 

 metridffi) and Comaiula hagenii (Coccometra hagenii), the first comatuhds definitelj' 

 kno%vn from the West Indies, C. brempinna being, moreover, the firet species known 

 with "plated ambulacra" lilve those of the pentacrinites, though their existence in 

 this form was not demonstrated untU mjxny 3-eai-s later. 



In the following year Kuhl and van Hasselt gave colored figures of two large 

 comatuhds, one of which was described as new under the name of Comaiula (^Acii- 

 nometra) hamafa (Comaiula Solaris), and Pourtales added to the known fauna of 

 the West Indies his Aniedon armata (Analcidomeira armata), A. cuhensis (Antedon 

 cubensis and Atelecrinus halanoides), and A. rubiginosa (Comactinia meridionalis). 

 At the same time Prof. E. von Martens recorded from the Red Sea the Alecto 

 palraata of MiiUcr, which had originally been described from the Red Sea, and, erro- 

 neously, India, and recorded Comaiula Solaris (based on a specimen of Tropiomeira 

 carinata) from Zanzibar. 



Dr. C. F. Liitken luid become interested in the comatuUds, and had discovered 

 that in the exocychc species the oral pinnules are furnished with a pecuhar terminal 

 comb; he retained Aciinomeira for the exocychc forms and used Aniedon or Alecto 



