412 BULLETIN 82, XTNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM VOLUME 1 



eluded that the increased temperature in recent years has resulted in the disappear- 

 ance of Ileliometra in the southern part of the area. 



Nomenclature. — Because of the absence in the Arctic and in the North Atlantic of 

 closely related species with which this might be confused, the nomenclatorial history of 

 this species is relatively simple. 



As it is very similar in general aspect, though vastly superior in size, to Antedon 

 bifida, it was quite natural that Phipps (1774, 1775) should refer it to the Linnean 

 Asterias pectinata. 



The name Aledo glacialis used by Leach (1S30) and Owen (1S33) has already been 

 discussed on p. 341. 



Referred to by J. Miiller in 1840 as Comatula eschrichtii, the species was in the suc- 

 ceeding year formally described by him under the name of Alecto eschrichtii, which he 

 modified in 1849 to Comatula (Alecto) eschrichtii. 



In 1857 Prof. C. F. Liitkon identified as Alecto eschrichtii the Asterias pectinata 

 of Phipps (1774, 1775), Scorcsby (1820) and Dewhurst (1834). 



In 1860 Walker reverted to the name Alecto glacialis, while in 1862 Dujardin 

 and Hupe used Comatula eschrichtii, identifying with it a specimen labeled Comatula 

 glacialis from the Polar seas which they found in the Paris Museum. Mrs. E. C. 

 and Mr. Alexander Agassiz in 1865 followed Prof. Liitken and M. Sars in the use of 

 Alecto eschrichtii. 



Prof. Sven Lov6n in 1866, following the lead of Lutken and Norman, reinstated 

 the generic name Antedon for all the endocyclic comatulids, at the same time emending 

 the specific name to eschrichti. In this emendation of the specific name he has been 

 followed by most subsequent workers, mainly because of its adoption by Prof. F. 

 Jeffrey Bell and, following him, by Dr. P. H. Carpenter in 1882. 



In 1875 Lutken disregarded Loven's alteration of the specific name, calling 

 the species Antedon eschrichtii, in which he was followed by W. B. and P. H. Carpenter 

 prior to 1882, and subsequent to that date by such of the continental authors as were 

 more or less independent of the work of the latter. But after the publication of his 

 memoir on the exocj'dic comatulids (1879) and especially after the publication of 

 the Challenger reports (1884, 1888), P. H. Carpenter's prestige was deservedly so great, 

 while at the same time he was always so ready to aid everyone who applied to him for 

 information or for assistance, that his lead was unquestioningly followed in everything 

 concerning the recent crinoids. 



Hesitating between the use of the commonly accepted name Comatula, used 

 shortly before in Dujardin and Hup6's monograph and the newly reinstated name 

 Antedon, rescued from oblixdon by Lutken and Norman only a year or two before, 

 and as yet unfamiliar, W. B. Carpenter had in 1865 and 1866 called the common 

 English comatulid Antedon {Comatula) rosaceus; and in 1870 he similarly referred 

 to this species as Antedon (Comatula) eschrichti. 



Sir WyviUe Thomson identified some small specimens from the Faroe Channel 

 with the Comatula woodwardii, described by Barrett in 1857, which, on account of 

 the preoccupation of this name by Forbes for a fossil in 1852, had been renamed celtica 

 by Barrett and Mc Andrew in 1858. Sir Wyville therefore called these Antedon celticus 

 in 1873, and von Marenzeller applied the same name to some other similarly small ones 

 in 1878. The feminine form celtica (following the discovery of the origin of the name 

 Antedon by Mr. T. R. Stebbing in 1877) was used for this species by Sladen (on the 



