COMATULTr»AE. 1 To 



NOTE XXXV. 

 THE COMATULAE OF THE LEYDEN MUSEUM. 



BY 



P. HERBERT CARPENTER, M. A. 



The Coma^?i^a-collectioii of the Leyrlen Museum is one 

 of considerable importance , owing to its containing a large 

 proportion of the types of the species described by Johan- 

 nes Muller in his classical memoir'), »Ueber die Gattung 

 Comatula Lam. und ihre Arten." 



MüUer's descriptions, however, are notoriously incom- 

 plete, and have undergone no revision since their publi- 

 cation nearly forty jears ago, during which time a very 

 large number of Comatulae have been discovered. Some of 

 these have been referred with more or less success to one 

 or other of Müller's species , but without careful compari- 

 son with his types no accurate specific determinations have 

 been at all possible. When I visited the Leyden Museum 

 last autumn for the purpose of examining the seven types 

 of Müllerian species wliich it contains , I was not surpri- 

 sed to find a number of other Comatulae in the collection. 

 Thanks to the good offices of my friend Dr. Hubrecht , 

 to whom I am indebted for many acts of kindness , the 

 whole of the foreign (7o;«rtiu/a-collection numberiug twenty- 

 five specimens was sent over to my laboratory at Eton , in 

 order that I might study it in more detail than was pos- 



1) Abhandl. d. Berlin. Akad. 1849. pp. 387—265. 



Notes from tlie Leytleii ÜVIuseuin , Vol. III. 



