PART 5 A MONOGRAPH OF THE EXISTING CRINOIDS 221 



Forbes detcrniined the main features of the distribution of the rosy featlier star about 

 the coasts of the Irish Sea aud northward to the Shetlands. 



During this period Forl)es' work in England was supplemented by that of Messrs. 

 William Thompson and Robert Ball on tlie opposite shores of Ireland. Forbes related 

 that when dredging m Dublin Bay in August 1840, in company with these two gentle- 

 men, numbers of pentacrinoids were found more advanced than any seen before, so 

 advanced, in fact, that they saw the creature drop from its stem and swim about, a 

 true comatulid. William Thompson published a note on the occurrence of this species in 

 Ireland in 1844, and a list of localities, with notes, in 1856. 



As a residt of this work, the British Association in 1857 appointed a committee to 

 investigate the marine zoology of the southern and western coasts of Ireland. The 

 intention was to draw up a report upon the marine fauna of Ireland which should be 

 entitled to serve as a second part to that by Professor Forbes on the British marine 

 fauna. In 1859 Dr. E. Perceval Wright and Prof. J. Reay Greene published a preliminary 

 report in which the presence of the rosy feather star in each of five districts was in- 

 dicated, but no detailed report ever appeared. 



During tliis period of intensive faunal work, inspired and to a large extent personally 

 carried out by Edward Forbes, others were not idle. Hassall (1842) published notes on 

 some very young specimens which he dredged in Dublin Bay, J. PI Gray (1848) first 

 recorded the species from Plymouth Sound, Busch (1849, 1851) investigated the very 

 early stages and as a residt of his search for material added some new localities to its 

 known range, AlacAndrew (1851) recorded it from Vigo Bay (and A. mediterranea 

 from Malaga), Gordon (1852) reported it from the stomach of a fish in the Moray 

 Firth, Lewes (1860) found it at the Scilly Isles, and Su- John Dalyell (1851) and Mr. 

 Edmund Gosse (1853, 1855, 1865) fu-st introduced it to other than professional 

 naturalists. 



While the waters abouttheBritishlsleswere being so thoroughlystudied by Professor 

 Forbes and his colleagues and contemporaries, it happened that the microscope was 

 being vastly improved and increased in power, largely through the work of Messrs. 

 Ross, Pavell and James Smith, along lines suggested by Mr. J. J. Lister. It is therefore 

 easy to see why it was tiiat in the decade between 1860 and 1870 the outstanding work 

 on Antedon bifida should have been centered upon the embryology and development. 



The epoch-making and classical contributions of Professor George Allman (1863, 

 1864), Sir C. Wyville Thomson (1863, 1864, 1865), Dr. William B. Carpenter (1865, 

 1866, and continued into the next decade) and Prof. Michael Sars (1868) laid the founda- 

 tion for all our modern knowledge of the early stages of this animal, and such a firm 

 foundation that their work never has been revised or repeated, at least in its essential 

 features. 



So rapidly had facts been accumulated in the preceding years that the need for 

 the presentation of the data in accessible form was keenly felt. Brady (1863) and Sir 

 Wyvdle Thomson (1864) pubUshed popular accounts of the rosy feather star, the Rev. 

 A. M. Norman (1865) presented a more technical account, bringing out some features 

 hitherto overlooked, and Dr. W. B. Carpenter in his memoir on the later developmental 

 stages (1866) gave a detailed history of it in a memoir which is really remarkable for 

 its completeness and its accuracy. 



While the main interest in this decade centered about the early stages, dredging 

 operations were by no means neglected. Thomson, Brady, Carpenter and Norman all 



