The crinoids, especially the comatulids, are singularly like flowers in ap- 

 pearance, and, as if to emphasize that similarity, their specific interrelationships 

 have many features comparable to those of plants instead of to those of other 

 animals. The stamens of a flower may be said to be represented in the comatulids 

 by the lowest pinnules which, with the cirri, form the best general guide to their 

 systematic position, and which are arranged in a ring around the conical anal tube 

 just as the stamens surround the pistil. 



For the illustration of this report I was so fortunate as to be able to secure 

 the services of Miss Violet Dandridge of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, U.S.A., 

 who is herself an enthusiastic and earnest student of the echinoderms. 



With the genera I have in all cases given the type species, in parentheses 

 after the reference. This has seemed advisable on account of the very scattered 

 literature and tiie consequent difficulty of securing all the papers except in a well- 

 equipped library centre. 



