16 ME. P. H. CARPENTER ON THE GENUS ACTINOMETEA. 



type possessing certain definite characters, by which it may he distinguished from other 

 types forming the centres of similar groups of varieties ; but the characters above men- 

 tioned are usually so excessively variable within each group, that it becomes utterly 

 impossible to make any use of them as specific distinctions, as Dujardin has done. 



Dujardin seems to have detected Muller's oversight in classing the Asterias multi- 

 radiata of Retzius as an Alecto after previously describing it as an Actlnometra ; for he 

 transferred it to this genus under the name of Actlnometra multiracUata, and adopted 

 Muller's specific designation multifield for the original specimens described as Comatula 

 multiracUata by Lamarck. The third form to which this name has been applied, viz. the 

 C. multiracUata of Goldfuss, was regarded by Dujardin as a separate genus on account 

 of its possessing external basals, or, as he called them, " interradials ;" and he restored to 

 it the old name of Comaster, which had been given up by Midler, including in this genus, 

 as Roerner had previously done, all the species of Solanocrinus. 



(§ 12) Muller had, as we have seen above, referred hoth Alecto and Actlnometra to the 

 one genus Comatula, while Dujardin limited the application of the latter name to the 

 species of Alecto only, and gave up the name of Alecto altogether, as had been previously 

 done by D'Orbigny and Pictet. This was a step in the right direction ; for, as Muller 

 had already pointed out, this name had been employed since 1821 to designate a section 

 of the Polyzoa established by Lamouroux. It is a pity, however, that Dujardin, instead 

 of limiting the application of Lamarck's name Comatula to the species of Midler's sub- 

 genus A lecto, did not revert to the old name of Anteclon, which was proposed by his 

 countryman De Ereminville in 1811, and had since received but little notice. This step 

 was taken by Mr. Norman l a few years later. He did not, however, use Anteclon as 

 precisely equivalent to Alecto, but applied the name to those forms only in which the 

 mouth is central and the anus lateral ; and he has been followed by nearly all the sub- 

 sequent writers upon the Crinoids. 



The etymology of Anteclon is somewhat obscure. De Preminville described his typical 

 species as Anteclon gorgonia, which gives no information as to the gender of the name. 

 Mr. Norman, however, arrived at the conclusion that it is masculine, and hence 

 described the common British species as Anteclon rosaceus. In this respect all the later 

 writers have agreed with him with the exception of Pourtales 2 , who employs Anteclon 

 as a feminine name; and in this step he has since been justified by the result of the 

 recent etymological researches of Mr. Spedding 3 . 



It will be used in the same manner in the following pages, both because this seems to 

 be ctymologically correct, and for the sake of convenience ; since, as long as Muller's 

 system of trinomial nomenclature is employed for the Comatula, it is far simpler to 

 write Comatula (Anteclon) rosacea than Anteclon ?°osaceus= Comatula rosacea. In any 

 case, we are now acquainted with so many different types, Anteclon, Actlnometra, Co- 

 master, Phanogenia, and 02)hiocrinus, to all of which Lamarck's designation Comatula 



1 " On the Genera and Species of the British Echinodermata," Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3, vol. xv. p. 98. 



2 Bull, of the Mus. of Comp. Zool. vol. i. No. 6, " Contributions to the Fauna of the Gulf Stream at Great Depths," 

 p. 11 1 ; and Xo. 1 1, " List of the Crinoids obtained on the Coasts of Florida and Cuba in 1867, 18G8, 18GSJ," p. 355. 



J ' Nature,' vol. xv. p. 366. 



