REPORT ON THE ASTEROIDEA. A11 
Genus Nardoa, Gray, emend. 
Linckia (pars), Miiller and Troschel, Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1840, April, p. 103. 
Nardoa, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1840, Dec., vol. vi. p. 286. 
Gomophia, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1840, Dec., vol. vi. p. 286. 
Scytaster (pars), Miiller and Troschel, System der Asteriden, 1842, p. 34. 
Ophidiaster (pars), Miiller and Troschel, System der Asteriden, 1842, p. 28. 
Scytaster (pars), Liitken, Videnskab. Medd. naturh. Foren. 1 Kjobenhayn, 1864, p. 163. 
The limits of the genus to which I have restored Gray’s name of Nardoa are the same 
as those recognised by Perrier under the name of Scytaster. I fail to see the justice of 
the grounds on which Gray’s name has been ignored by preceding writers. The following 
statements give the history of the case. In 1834 Nardo’ established the genus Linckia, 
including in it three species, Linckia typus, Linckia franciscus, Linckia variolosa (err. 
typ. for variolata). In 1835 Agassiz? maintained the genus exactly as named and 
constituted by Nardo. In April 1840 Miiller and Troschel® correctly discerned that the 
last of the three species above mentioned (Linckia variolata) represented a different 
generic type from the other two; but they erroneously referred Linckia typus (and 
subsequently in 1842 Linckia franciscus) to the genus Ophidiaster established by Agassiz 
in 1835, leaving only Linckia variolata in the genus Linckia, which they modified (by 
implication) for the reception of the form now known as Fromia mulleporella. In 
December 1840 Gray * published the concluding part of his Synopsis of the Genera and 
Species of Starfish, and in this work the genus Linckia of Nardo is maintained, and the 
two species Linckia typus and Linckia franciscus duly referred to it. For the third 
species mentioned by Nardo, ‘ Linckia” 
the name of Nardoa. This course was perfectly correct and justifiable, and there could 
variolata, Gray established a new genus under 
be no doubt or possible ambiguity about the type, as the species had been known and 
figured for more than a century. 
In 1842 Miiller and Troschel, in their classical work, System der Asteriden, unfortu- 
nately ignored altogether these clearly established genera, discarded Linckia as restricted 
by themselves two years previously, and proposed a new name, Scytaster, for a genus, the 
type of which was the Nardoa variolata of Gray (the Linckia variolata of Nardo), and 
associated with it species which are now recognised as the representatives of two other 
genera. This step appears to me to have been altogether unwarrantable. 
Liitken ® in 1864 and 1871 limited the scope of the genus Scytaster, and Perrier ® still 
further in 1875. Scytaster as now understood is quite different in its scope from the 
1 De Asteriis, Oken’s Isis, 1834, Heft vil. p. 717. 
2 Mém. Soc. Sci. Nat. Neuchatel, t. i. p. 191. 
3 Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, April 1840, p. 103. 
4 Ann. and Mag. Hist., vol. vi. p. 284. 
> Videnskab. Medd. naturh. Foren. i Kj¢benhavn, for 1864, p. 163; for 1871, p. 279. 
6 Reéyis. Stell. Mus., p. 156 (Archives de| Zool. expér., 1875, t. iv. p.! 420) 
