THE ACTINOGONIDIATE ECHINODEKMS OF THE 

 MALDIVE AND LACCADIVE ISLANDS. 



By F. Jeffrey Bell, M.A., Emeritus Professor and Fellow of King's College, 



London. 



By the kindness of Mr Stanley Gardiner I have had the opportunity of examining the 

 Echinoderms collected by him in the Maldive and Laccadive Islands. The collection is 

 of the ordinary coral-reef tj'pe, and consists, as did that from the Macclesfield Bank (see 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1894, p. 392), very largely of young forms; these are, of course, of 

 very great value and interest, more, I think, than any number of " new species," but they 

 make no show in a systematic report. When a study is made of the changes that occur 

 during post-larval gi-owth these specimens will be seen at their full value. There are a large 

 number of Ophiuroids, and some would probably, if determined, require describing as " new 

 species"; since 1888, however, we have known of 132 (or 120) species of Ophiuroids from 

 the Indo-Pacific area (see Brock, Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool. xlvii. p. 538) ; .since then I and others 

 have helped to swell the list, but, so far as I know, no one has done anything to codify or set 

 in order the numerous so-called species, based, many of them, on one or a few specimens, and 

 often so described as to be quite misleading. I have not thought it my duty on this occasion 

 to swell the list. On the other hand, just as in the Bassett Smith collection, I was able to 

 detect the rare and interesting Ophiopteron elegans, so in the Stanley Gardiner collection I 

 have found the very rare Ophiaethiops nnicolor described by Brock in the journal just cited. 

 As I have also found 0. elegans in some quantity I am able to point out that Brock's statement 

 as to the poverty of the western forms of the Indo-Pacific, as compared with the eastern, 

 requires some modification. 



Lastly, there is a point which is of far wider interest than the discovery of new species 

 in these variable forms ; again and again on working through the Ophiuroids I have observed 

 that the upper surface of the disc has disappeared. I can only again urge on those who 

 are for a time staying near a reef to investigate the problem which I raised in 1888, and 

 which, to his regret (see Tijds. Nederl. Dierk. Ver. v. (1898), p. 306) was not known to Dr Sluiter 

 till ten years later. It is clear that, if the gonads of an Ophiuroid be set free by the separation 

 of the disc, and if a new disc be formed and new gonads developed, the question of germ- 

 plasm may be considered settled. 



I have endeavoured as on some previous occasions (see especially P.Z.S. 1887, p. 523) to 

 avoid the treatment at inordinate length which appears to be a real joy to many naturalists ; 

 G. 29 



