A MONOGRAPH OF THE EXISTING CRINOIDS 1 19 



and description. In his account of the several species, however, he mentioned the 

 presence of myzostomes on only two, Antedon elegans and Antedon milberti. In von 

 Graff's description of the myzostomes he likewise listed only two comatulids from the 

 Mergui collection among the hosts, Antedon comata and Antedon milberti. It is thus 

 evident that Carpenter at first believed that the zygometrids collected at Mergui 

 represented a new species, to which he tentatively applied the manuscript name 

 comata, but later decided that they should be referred to Antedon elegans. The 

 conclusion that the form referred to as Antedon elegans in Carpenter's report upon the 

 collection from the Mergui Archipelago is really the one he had originally called in 

 manuscript Antedon comata is further borne out by the detailed comparisons he 

 gives between the Australian specimens (representing true elegans) and those from 

 elsewhere. 



In 1908 I recorded specimens of this species, as Zygometra elegans, from Albatross 

 stations 5137 and 5138 in the Philippines. 



In discussing Zygometra elegans in my paper on the comatulids collected by the 

 Gazelle, which was published on June 1, 1909, I remarked that I could not agree with 

 Carpenter in regarding Antedon fluctuans as a synonym of Antedon elegans. I said 

 that "judging from a very large series from Singapore and the Philippine Islands, 

 fluctuans has uniformly about thirty arms with wedge-shaped brachials, and com- 

 paratively short cirri with not more than thirty-five joints; it is a smaller and more 

 delicate species, with the IIIBr series always 2, developed internally, and bears a 

 very close resemblance to the species of Heterometra." 



In a memoir on the comatulids in the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen, pub- 

 lished on November 16, 1909, under the name Zygometra fluctuans, I recorded and 

 gave notes upon 23 specimens from Singapore collected by the Danish Consul, Svend 

 Gad. I said that "these specimens agree closely with Carpenter's description of 

 fluctuans, except that the brachials are oblong distally ; moreover, they all agree among 

 themselves, and with Philippine specimens." I remarked that I had at first followed 

 Carpenter's lead and considered them, as Carpenter had his own fluctuans, to be 

 representatives of Bell's previously described elegans; but when I examined the col- 

 lections made by the Gazelle in northwestern Australia I found that I was wrong, 

 for in that collection there are specimens of what is undoubtedly true elegans which 

 agree with Bell's diagnosis and have much longer and more robust cirri, composed 

 of more numerous segments, than any of these specimens. I concluded that, judging 

 from the material at hand, elegans and fluctuans are both perfectly good species, and 

 there is not the slightest difficulty in differentiating them. 



In a paper on some crinoids dredged by the Albatross in the Philippines published 

 on February 15, 1911, 1 recorded "Zygometra comata (A. H. Clark)" from station 5358, 

 giving the number and length of the arms of the single specimen and remarking that 

 it resembled others from Singapore in the collection of the University of Copenhagen. 

 In my memoir on the recent crinoids of Australia published later in the same 

 year, in a footnote appended to the differential characters of Zygometra elegans I 

 proposed the name Zygometra comata, "reinstating a nomen nudum long ago applied 

 to it in MS. by Carpenter," for the species represented by the specimens from the 

 Mergui Archipelago, Singapore, and the Philippine Islands, which I had previously 

 considered as representing Carpenter's Antedon {Zygometra) fluctuans. I said that I 



