30 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



the Challenger crinoids, and from those collected by the Blake in the West Indies. 

 The names included in these later reports (two on the ChaUenger and one on the 

 Bhil-e niutoiial) were furnished by P. 11. Carpenter; but some of them were subse- 

 (luontly droi)i)od by C'ar])cnter, and others were never mentioned by him at all, so 

 that they now stand in von Graff's works as nomina nuda. 



In 1S7S Pourtalds, continuing his studies, described Antedonalata {Neocomatella 

 alata), A. indcheUa {Neocomatella alata), and A. granulifcra {Crinometra granullfera). 



Owing to the great difficulty wliich he must have had in comprehending the 

 vague descri))tions of the early authors, and to a lack of the true appreciation of the 

 somewhat intricate tUlferential s])ecllic characters of the gi'oup, as well as to the 

 almost complete absence of material mth which to make comparisons, we find the 

 <liagnoses of PourtalSs somewhat difficult to comprehend, the more so as many of 

 them are short and indeiinite: the absence of authentic tj-jie-specimens, and a trans- 

 ference of certain of his original labels to species not agreeing with liis diagnoses 

 have added to the confusion. Car]>enter attempted to straighten matters out in 

 1881, but in some ways made tilings rather worse. Antedon granulifera Carpenter 

 at first decided was an " Actinometra" ; later (1888) ho shifted the name to a species 

 {Crinometra imhricata) rcsembhng Crinometra hrevipinna but entirely lacking the 

 l)ecuhar granulated ornamentation wliich induced Pourtales to bestow the name 

 granulifera upon it, and renamed Antedon pourtalesii what is most probably the type 

 of granulifera. Carpenter's action in regard to Antedon alata and A. pulchella was 

 extremely arbitrary; ho saw that the two were synonyms, but, uistead of choosing 

 the first name given {alata), he chose the later {pulchella) as being more appropriate. 



In 1879 Dr. Edgar A. Smith described in great detail a new comatulid from the 

 island of Rodriguez, wliich remains to-day the only crinoid known from that locahty ; 

 he called it Comatula indica {Stephanometra indica) and it was the first species to be 

 tUscovered belonging to the family Stephanometridffi. In the same year Dr. Richard 

 Uathbun ])ubUshcd tlio results of liis study of the BraziUan comatuhds, carefully 

 comparing Brazihan and African s]>ecinicns of the corresponding s])ecies of Tropio- 

 metra, and describing in detail, though conscientiously refraining from naming, 

 another sjjccies from BrazU which has since proved to be the interesting Nemaster 

 lineata. 



The year 1879 marked the beginning of a new c])och in the study of the comatu- 

 lids, for in that year was pubhshed Philip Herbert Carpenter's masterly monograph 

 on the genus " Actinotnetra ," which is, in many w'ays, the best work he ever did, and 

 wliich is free from a num1)er of the more serious errors wliich mar the Chal- 

 lenger report pubhshed nine yeai-s later. In this work he re%-iews the whole subject 

 of the comatuhds and gives a detailed account of the comparative structure of such 

 species as were available. One new species, Actinonietra polijmorpha, is described, 

 which, however, he soon found to be the same as the Alecto parvicirra of Miiller. 



In the same year Carpenter jnibhshed a prehminury account of the comatulids 

 which had been collected by the Challenger, in which ho diagnosed the remarkable 

 new genus Promachocnnus wliich has 10 radials instead of the usual 5. 



In 1881 Caq^entcr followed tliis with a similar report on the collections of the 

 United States Coast Survey steamer Blake, in wliich he gave us an idea of the fauna 



