ACTINOMETItA l'ARVICHJKA. 205 



in its character. A specimen iu the same Museum whicli 

 had beeu obtained by Hombron and Jacquiiiot at Vavao 

 (Friendly Islands) during the voyage of the Astrolabe was 

 regarded by Muller as probably belonging to the same spe- 

 cies {C. parvidrra). This specimen I found in the Mu- 

 seum under the name C. hrevicirr'a^ Troschel ; while three 

 small specimens from the voyage of Perou and Lesueur, 

 bearing the Museum name of C. simplex may possibly be 

 the originals of C. parvicirra. The chief difficulty in the 

 way of this identification is the fact that iu none of them 

 do the rays divide more than twice, tlie number of arms 

 being less than twenty; while Muller speaks of twenty- 

 seven arms , the rays sometimes dividing three times. But 

 whether they be his original specimens or not , they are 

 identical with the one from Vavao which he placed under 

 C. parvicirra and also with his type specimens of C. ti- 

 niorensis. I prefer to retain the former name to designate 

 the species, not because ^/gcto/;rt7'<;M"?Vra appears on p. 185 , 

 and Alecto timorensis on p. 186 of the Berlin. Monatsbe- 

 richte for 1841 , but because the former really expresses a 

 distinctive characteristic of the type , and has the advant- 

 age of not connecting it with any definite locality. 



The use of geographical terms as specific titles is oft- 

 en very tempting, but sooner or later the species is found 

 at other localities than the one first recorded , and then 

 the name becomes somewhat misleading. In the case of 

 this species therefore which , for a Comatula , has a wide 

 range , the name parvicirra has so much more in its fav- 

 our than timorensis has that I prefer to use it, despite 

 the slight uncertainty about the specimens for which it 

 was originally employed by Muller. 



The closer examination of the Paris specimens which I 

 made during my second visit to the Museum last autumn , 

 aided by the knowledge gained during four years of pretty 

 continuous study of the Comatulae , has also led me to 

 identify C. parvicirra with the series of specimens from 

 the Philippine Islands which I have described under the 



Noten from iho Ijey<leii TVIuaoiiiii , "Vol. JH. 



