2 ECHINODERMA OF THE TNDIAN MuSEUM, PART VTI. 



is described as liaving ten arms, but the figure of Petiver cited in the reference 

 shows thirteen! Asterias muUiradiata is a more hopeless composite even than 

 A. pectinata, for we are unable to identify any of the components; fortunately, 

 there still exists the type-specimen, which fixes the name, and, curiously enough, 

 Capillaster muUiradiata (Linnaeus) is the very same species to which the name 

 pectinata would have to be applied were we forced to rely upon elimination instead 

 of being able to consult the authentic type ! 



In his reaUy wonderful work, the great Dutch collector, Albertus Seba, 

 figured and described two multibrachiate species one of which was said to have 

 come from Mexico, but both of which probably came from the East Indies. One 

 of these, Stella marina polyactis, had twenty-nine arms, the other, Luna marina 

 altera, thirty-seven ; but in spite of that, Linn.^ius in 1767 placed both in the 

 synonymy of the ten-armed Asterias pectinata. With this heterogeneous concept 

 of the species it is no wonder that to his description of Asterias imdtira/liata lie 

 appends the remark that it is possibly only a variety of A. pectinata ! 



In 1783 Retzius re-examined the types of the Linnsean species, and published 

 good descriptions of both of them. 



Towards the end of the eighteenth century. Pennant, Forster, and Latham 

 and Davis, in the various editions of the " Faunula Indica," included both tlie 

 Linnsean species, but solely on the authority of that author, being able to add no 

 original matter of their own. 



In 1815 Dr. William Elford Leach described as new the genus Alecto, 

 including in it A. horrida, an unidentifiable form probably from India or the 

 East Indies, and A. carinata which is supposed to be the Comatula ca,rinata of 

 Lamarck, and which may have come from India. 



In the following year Lamarck published the results of the studies of himself 

 and of his friend P^ron on the group, describing five new species from the Indian 

 region, and identifying as the Linnaean muUiradiata two forms which subsequently 

 proved to be something quite different, one the interesting Capillaster sentosa, the 

 ot'ner the first known species of a very remarkable genus (Comaster). 



In 1817, in the "Description de I'figypte," Savigny figured under the name 

 of Comatula. muUiradiata (identified by Audouin) and Comatula sp. the species 

 now known as He.terometra savignii and Tropiometra encrinus, his specimens 

 having been taken in the Red Sea. 



In 1819 ScHWEiGGER figured parts of an unidentifiable " Comatula multira^ 

 diata" probably from the Indian Ocean, and in 1833 Leuckart cited ''Comatula 

 leucomelas Riippel," as a Red Sea species, but without any description. Thanks 

 to Hartlaub's examination of the specimens collected by Riippel, we now know 

 that this form is Dichrometra palmata. 



Georg August Goldfuss, when engaged in studying the fossil crinoids of 

 Germany in the preparation of his great work " Petrefacta Germanige," found 

 at Bonn a specimen from the Indian Ocean which he called Comatula muUiradiata, 

 and which he figured in detail, this figure, by the way, being the first really 



