PART 5 A MONOGRAPH OF THE EXISTING CRINOIDS 255 



History. — In 1592 Fabius Coluiiina published the fust account of this species, 

 together with a very excellent figure. He had found it abundantly at Naples, and 

 gave a very accurate description of its arms and cirri (W. B. Carpenter, 1866); the 

 latter he assumed were used to seize the food and to draw it to the mouth, which he 

 supposed to be at the central point from which they radiate, after the manner of the 

 octopus. He described the visceral mass and noted that it is very easily detached. 

 He originally described the animal as "subrubens," but in 1606 he called it "cro- 

 ceum," stating further "rcperiuntur frequenter vario colore distiuctae veluti maculosae; 

 partes quidera lutescentcs, aliae pullo colore"; and he also notes, quoting observations 

 by Bartholinus, that if these animals be placed while yet alive in fresh water they im- 

 part their color to it while still living. 



His figure and his account were republished by Aldrovandus in 1602 and again in 

 1618, and a majority of the following seventeenth century authors contented them- 

 selves with reproducing the figure and more or less of the information given by 

 Aldrovandus. 



In 1714 this species was redescribed by Barrelier from the mouth of the Tiber. 



Linck in 1733 recognized as distinct both Columna's form which he called crocea, 



and Barrelier's, which he called barbata, in addition to that described by Llhuyd, which 



he named rosacea (=bifida); but Linnaeus in 1758 imited all thi-ee, together with an 



Indian Ocean species (Comafida pedinata) under the name of Asterias pedinata. 



For more than a hundred years after the appearance of Barrelier's memoir no 

 original contributions regarding this animal were published. In 1816 Lamarck bestowed 

 upon it the name of Comatula mediterranea, and ten years later Risso, giving it the addi- 

 tional names of Comatula annulata and C. coralina, recorded it from Nice and mentioned 

 various facts concerning the time of its occurrence and its local habits. 



The anatomy of this species began to attract attention in 1823, in which year 

 Meckel described the mouth and anus, twenty-three years after these orifices had been 

 pointed out by Adams in ^4. bifida. In 1826 Heusinger further described the digestive 

 sj^stem. In 1827 Leuckart described, under the name Myzostomum, the curious para- 

 sitic worms almost invariably found on this species, for which he used Leach's name 

 europaea. 



The structure and anatomy were now taken up more seriously, forming the subject 

 of more or less extended observations by Heusinger (1828, 1833), who gave colored 

 figures of the entire animal and of dissections, Dclle Cliiaje (1832) and Leuckart (1833), 

 while Goldfuss (1832) compared the skeleton wath that of fossil types. Leuckart's 

 account was quite detailed, including a discussion of the range and historj^; he also 

 recorded it for the fii'st time from Cette. 



From studies made at Toulon, Dujardin in 1835 determined the fact that the eggs 

 are extruded and carried on the pinnules, and he added other points of interest regard- 

 ing its habits; for the first time he found the pentacrinoid j^oung. 



In 1840 Grube publislied a monographic account of the Mediterranean echino- 

 dcrms, recording this species from Naples and Palermo. In the following year Delle 

 Chiaje recorded it under the name bicolor from two new localities in Sicily, while 

 J. Miillcr pointed out that the madreporite previously described in this species by 

 DeUe Chiaje was in reality nothing more than a myzostome parasite. In the same year 

 Forbes reasserted the identity of this and the English form. 



