ME. P. H. CAEPENTEE ON THE GENES ACTINOMETEA. 9 



Miiller seems at first, not unnaturally, to have supposed that Goldfuss was right in 

 referring the rnany-armed specimen dissected by him to the Comatula multiradiata of 

 Lamarck, for which species he adopted Agassiz's name Comaster '. But he did not use it 

 precisely in the same sense as Agassiz, who, in his definition of the genus, makes no 

 mention of the external basals, the presence of wbicli was regarded by Goldfuss as the 

 principal character distinguishing Comaster from Comatula. 



Miiller adopted Comaster 2 in the sense in which Goldfuss used the name ; and when 

 he subsequently discovered 3 that the Comatula multiradiata or Comaster of Goldfuss was 

 not specifically identical with the specimen described asComatitla multiradiata by Lamarck, 

 he retained the name Comaster for Goldfuss's specimen only, which, like Solanocrinus, is 

 remarkable for having " kleine basalia zwischen den Insertionen der Kelchradien, oder 

 sogennanten Beckenstucke welche den eigentlichen Comatulen ganzlich fehlen " 4 . 



At the same time he gave a careful description 5 of Lamarck's original specimen of 

 Comatula multiradiata, based upon an examination of it by Troschel ; but as he regarded 

 Comaster and Solanocrinus only as one subgenus of Comatula, he gave it a new specific 

 name " multifula," on the ground that " die Comatula multiradiata Goldfuss, als die 

 zuerst genau beschriebene, den Speciesnamen multiradiata behalten muss." Lamarck's 

 specimen Avas thus restored by Miiller to its previous position among the " Comatulen 

 im engern Sinne, nainlich Gattung Alecto, Leach (Comatula, Lamarck)," which he 

 grouped together with Comaster into one family, Comatulinm. The fossil Solanocrinus 

 was regarded by him as identical with the latter form, while he referred the Hertha 

 mystica of Hagenow, and Pterocoma, Ag. (C. pinnata, Goldf.), to Comatula or Alecto; 

 for at that time (1841) he used the two names indifferently, considering them (as, indeed, 

 they originally were) equivalent to one another. 



Goldfuss put forward about the same time a somewhat similar classification. 6 In a 

 subsequent abstract (with additions) of his ' Beitrage zur Petrefactenkunde,' [which had 

 been published two years previously (1839)] he speaks of the two species dissected by 

 him as "die Typen der zwei nachst bezeichneten Genera (Comatula, Comaster), welche 

 daher nebst den zwei zuletzt folgenden (Solanocrimtes, Gasterocoma) als Verzweigungen 

 des Lamarck'schen weiten Geschlechts Comatula zu betrachten sind." He did not, how- 

 ever, agree with Miiller in regarding Solanocrinites and Comaster as identical, partly, 

 apparently, because nothing was known of the arms of the former, and partly because of 

 the differences in the form of the " Knopf," or centrodorsal piece, which he called a 

 short stem — although, as Miiller showed, this is not a character of any generic value. 



Although Goldfuss had at first supposed 7 that the basals were really absent in Coma- 

 tula mediterranea, and that the first radials therefore rested directly upon the top of the 

 centrodorsal piece, or, as he expressed it, on the last stem-segment, he seems subsequently 

 to have changed his opinion ; for in his definition 8 of the genus Comatula, given in 1839, 



1 " Beitrage zur Petrefactenkunde," ho. cit. p. 349. " Wiegmann's Archiv, 1840, i. p. 309. 



3 " Ueber die Gattungen und Arten der Comatulen," Wiegmann's Archiv, 1841, i. pp. 14o, 147. 



4 "Bau des Pentacrinus," loc. cit. p. L'7. 5 Wiegmann's Archiv, 1841, i. p. 147. 



6 Neues Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie, 1841, p. 818. 



7 Petrefacta Germanise, torn. cit. pp. 203, 204. 8 Beitrage, &c. loc. cit. p. 349. 

 SF.COND SERIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. II. 2 



