vestigations, for which he would certainly have heen better qualified than any other. A few 

 months later his death, so regrettable for the science, took place, whereby these and many 

 other important examinations which he had just commenced were suddenly interrupted. Al- 

 ready in the preceding year I had, at the fishing place Skraaven in Lofoten, taken up in the 

 dredge, from the considerable depth of 300 fathom.s, a quite young specimen of a Brisinga 

 which seemed to exhibit specific differences from the form previously observed, having for 

 instance only 10 arms, and which my Father, in the reasonable belief that the number of 

 arms was in this form as constant as in the B. endecacnemos, denominated preliminarily 

 B. decacnemos. It was however not before 1870 that, having found full grown specimens, I 

 succeeded in ascertaining the specific dift'erences of the two forms, and also came to the 

 conviction that the number of the arras in the Lofoten species is, strange to say, and quite 

 contrarily to what has proved to be the case in the form first discovered, subject to very 

 considerable variation; for which reason the specific name appropriated to it by my Father 

 could not be retained. Under the appellation Brisinr/a coronata I noticed it briefly in the 

 year following'; reserving to myself to furnish at a subsequent time a more elaborate de- 

 scription accompanied by illustrative delineations. It is this description which I have now 

 the honor to lay before the scientific public. I have not so much had in view to estab- 

 lish by a minute comparative description the independence of the sjjecies in relation to that 

 previously described, as by the most thorough and exhaustive investigation possible of the 

 whole organisation of the present species, to furnish a contribution to our general knowledge 

 of the genus Brisinga, in order thereby to gain a more secure stand-point forjudging subse- 

 quently of tlie morphology of this remarkable animal form, and of its relation to other Echi- 

 noderms. 



The tolerably abundant materials which I have had at my disposal, and which in the 

 interest of science I have felt bound to use without any limitation for my anatomical in- 

 vestigations, have enabled me by repeated dissections and preparations, with and without the 

 help of chemical reactives, to ascertain and verify again and again most of the points in the 

 finer anatomic structure 



1 can here add that the present species has been found also during the expeditions 

 recently organised by the British Government in many places in the great deeps of the 

 Atlantic Ocean, and has been likewise recognised by the chief leader of these expeditions 

 Professor Wyville Thompson, whose thorough acquaintance with the Echinoderms is univers- 

 ally acknowledged, as a species distinct from the form first discovered Brisinga endecacnemos. 

 In a recent very interesting work by the naturalist mentioned, on the results of these expedi- 

 tions entitled: „The depths of the Sea," Brisinga coronata will be found briefly described 

 under this name proposed by me, with a beautiful woodcut of the animal seen from above. 



Nye Echinodermer fra den norske Kyst. Chr. Vid. Selsk. Forliandl. f. 1871. 



IT 



