124 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



articular connectives by Bosshard ; on perisomic spicules by Woodland ; on perisomic 

 plates by Keyes; on the intestinal tract by Frenzel; on glandular organs by Reich- 

 ensperger; on the metamorphoses by Bury; on Iiybrids with other ecliinoderms 

 by Godlewski; on fossil comatulids by de Loriol; on the sense of smell and taste 

 by Nagel; and on the ])lates bordering the ambulacra in Ileliometra and Ilathrometra 

 by Mortensen. The more general works of Zittel, Jaekel, and especially of llaeckel, 

 call for separate notice. 



General survey of the history. 



The year 18.35 witnessed the inception of careful investigation into the develop- 

 mental history of the comatulids, while the first serious attempt to elucidate their 

 structure and anatomy was made in 1829. Work along both lines was carried on 

 more or less intermittently, under the great handicap of a limited knowledge of 

 teclinique and inadecjuate instruments, until the early sixties, when the labors of 

 Professors AUman, Sir C. Wyville Thomson and W. B. Carpenter at once advanced 

 it to a much higher plane than it -ever occupied before, and gave it an entirely new 

 aspect. 



The years 1876-'77, a little over a decade later, again marked the inception of 

 a new epoch and gave to the study a stimulus which has persisted until tlie present 

 day. It is interesting to observe that this epoch was ushered in mainly by the 

 initial work of young men, and not only was it thereby endowed from the start 

 with a certain quality of originality and forcefulncss, but interest in it was kept 

 alive by the continued labors of these individuals and by the advice which they 

 gave and the example which they set to others. 



The study of the fossil crinoids, especially those of America, at the same time 

 began to assume a new aspect, the same period wliich mtnessed the first applica- 

 tion of the present methods to the study of the development and anatomy of the 

 recent forms ushering in for them also consideration and treatment along the 

 lines followed at the present day. 



Ml-. Charles Wachsmuth and Mr. Frank Springer had commenced their system- 

 atic researches together, and these authors, by their joint work on the so-called 

 Pala;ocrinoidea, ami by many subsequent contributions, did for the fossil crinoids 

 what the investigators on the other side of the Atlantic were doing for the recent 

 species. Not only that, but they worked side by side with the two Carpenters, 

 especially the son, and this mutual cooperation has been of the greatest benefit in 

 bringuig out many of the steps by which dilferent results were attained. They 

 were the first defiiiitely to in^iist that the fossil crinoiils could not be adequately 

 understood without a comparative study of the e.xistuig forms. 



It was of course to be expected that a student of recent species would view their 

 fossil re])rcsontativcs in a somewhat dilferent light from that in which they ai)peared 

 to a palaeontologist, llistorj' has showTi that too often fossils have been ignored 

 by workers on recent forms, and recent forms ignored or slighted by palaeontolo- 

 gist's, to whom the study of the more minute details presented by them has appeared 

 irksome and even useless; the students of the crinoids are therefore ])ecuharly for- 

 tunate in that the one to whom we are indebted for the great bulk of our knowl- 



