758 BULLETIN 82, tlNITED STATES NATIONAL IMUSEUM VOLUME 1 



Challenger station 169; northeast of New Zealand (lat. 37°34' S., long. 179°22' E.); 

 1279 meters; temperature 4.44° C; blue mud; July 10, 1874 [P. H. Carpenter, 1S88; 

 A. H. Clark, 1913] (1, B.M.). Type locality. 



History. — Carpenter's first mention of this species (1887) is in a discussion of the 

 sacculi of crinoids, wherein the name Antedon tenuis appears with the locality Challenger 

 station 170. By a process of elimination Antedon tenuis is found to cover the specimens 

 from station 170A referred to Antedon alternata in the Challenger report (1888), but the 

 name as it is given is a nomen nudum. 



Carpenter's original account of Antedon alternata (1888) was based upon 1 specimen 

 from Challenger station 169, 2 from station 170A, 1 from station 218, and 4, of which 2 

 were yoimg, from station 236. Specimens from stations 170A, 218 and 236 were figured. 



Carpenter remarked that he was at first inclined to separate specifically the 

 individuals taken at stations 170A and 169 from those taken at station 236, but that 

 the additional experience of variable specific characters in these animals gained between 

 1879 and 1887 had led him to abandon the idea. However he gave in some detail the 

 differences between the specimens from station 170A and those from station 236. 



In 1908 I selected Challenger station 169 as the type locality for alternata, avoiding 

 station 170A because of the fact that the specimens from this locality had previously 

 been mentioned under the name of tenuis. Carpenter's description of alternata covers 

 all his specimens; but in 1887 von Graff, on Carpenter's authority, published the name 

 alternata as the host of a myzostome from station 236, which, taken in connection with 

 the appearance in the same year of the name tenuis covering specimens from station 

 170, would seem to indicate that originally Carpenter had designated the northern form 

 alternata and the smaller southern form tenuis. 



In studying the Siboga collection, I found a new species which in 1912 I described 

 under the name of Trichometra delicata, recognizing as conspecific the specimen from 

 Challenger station 218 figured by Carpenter. The name Trichometra delicata having 

 been used for a very different species from the Atlantic in the preceding year, this form 

 was redescribed and figured under the name of Nepiometra to in the Siboga report (1918). 

 It has since been referred to the genus Fariometra. 



On examining the comatulids in the British Museimi in 1910, it seemed to me that 

 the specimens from Challenger stations 169 (1) and 170A (2) differed sufficiently from 

 that from station 236 to necessitate the recognition of a new species. Station 169 having 

 previously been selected as the type locality, I bestowed the name Thaumatometra 

 cypris (1913) upon the form from station 236, leaving alternata covering only the 

 specimens from stations 169 and 170A. [Note by A.M.C. T. cypris is now referred 

 to the synonymy of T. parva.] 



THAUMATOMETRA PARVA A. H. Clark 



Antedon allernata von Graff, Challenger Reports, Zoology, vol. 20, pt. 61, 1887, p. 6 (sta. 236; myzos- 

 tomes; nomen midum). — P. II. Carpenter, Challenger Reports, Zoology, vol. 26, pt. 60, 1888, 

 p. 179 (part; sta. 236 [specimens from stas. 169 and 170A=T'. alternata, and from sta. 218= 

 Fariometra io]), pi. 32, figs. 5, 7-9 (pi. 18, figs. 1-3= T. alternata, pi. 32, fig. 6 = Fariometra to).— 

 Thompson, Proc. Roy. See. Edinburgh, vol. 22, 1899, p. 322 (part). — Hamann, Bronn's Klasscn 

 und Ordnungen des Ticr-Reichs, vol. 2, abt. 3, 1907, p. 1579 (part). — A. H. Clark, Smithsonian 

 Misc. Coll., vol. 50, pt. 3, 1907, p. 353 (part); Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., vol. 34, 1908, p. 318 (southern 

 Japan) ; Crinoids of the Indian Ocean, 1912, p. 246 (part [record from New Zealand = T. alternata 

 and from New Guinea = Fanomcira io]). 



