﻿258 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



" A personal examination of well-preserved Lobolithes has enabled 

 me to convince myself that the view of Dr. Jahn is correct ; they are 

 without doubt bladder-like swellings of large Crinoid columns. 

 However, I do not regard them as ' swimming apparatus ' but rather 

 as brood-pouches or (probably) pathologic cysts caused by parasites. 

 Similar structures have been described by Ludwig von Graff both in 

 fossil and living crinoids, and he has furnished the proof that they 

 are produced by the same parasites, Annelida of the genus Myzos- 

 toma; he compares them correctly with ' plant-galls ' (Ueber einige 

 Deformitaten an fossilen Crinoideen, Pakeontolographica, Bd. 31, 

 1885)." 



Bather, in the work cited, states : 



" Camarocrinus, Hall (syn. Lobolithus, Barr.), root of a Crinoid 

 {Scyphocrinus, apud Jaekel)" (p. yy). 



"Another curious modification [of crinoids], perhaps connected 

 with a free-floating existence, was presented by the root of Scyphocri- 

 nus. This swelled out into a hollow, chambered, balloon-like body, 

 referred by Barrande to an independent class of Echinoderms under 

 the name Lobolithus, and described by Hall as a float, which he called 

 Camarocrinus" (p. 135). 



Under Scyphocrinus Bather states " root a large hollow spheroid 

 strengthened by internal septa, regarded as a float (= Camarocri- 

 nus) by Hall, as a cystid (= Lobolithus) by Barrande" (p. 161). 



After having collected a large number of Camarocrinus in Mary- 

 land during 1901, the writer concluded they must be cystids, using 

 this term in the old sense. This idea was communicated to Mr. 

 Frank Springer, and on December 31, 1901, he wrote as follows: 



'' These strange organisms are a complete puzzle to me, and I 

 never could frame any theory of their nature which was not at 

 once swamped under a multitude of objections. 



" I still am inclined to think Hall's explanation the most probable, 

 although from anything we know about crinoid structures it is diffi- 

 cult to conceive what such a chambered mass had to do with the 

 roots. I cannot see how they can be cystids." 



Dr. Jaroslav F. Jahn, Briinn, Austria, who is preparing a mono- 

 graph of Barrande's material of Lobolithus, writes me as follows: 



" You probably know through Professor Jaekel that I regard 

 Lobolithus as bladder-like root structures of crinoids that probably 

 have Mixed as brood-pouches [or brood-receptacles, Brutsbehalter] . 

 I don't think these bodies are swimming apparatus, because they art 

 i< h > heavy." 



