COMPTOXIA ELEGAXS. 



2. CoMFfOJfU ELEGANS, Grai/. I'l. XVII, figs 4 aiul 1-a. 



CoMPTONiA ELEGAN8, Gray, 1840. Aim. A Mil),'. Nat. Hist., vol. vi. 



p. 278. 

 Stellaster ELEOAN.S, Forhes, 18-18. Mem. Geol. Surv. Gt. Brit., vol. ii. 



p. 476. 



— — Forbes, 1850. In Dixou's Geology and Fossils of 



the Tertiary and Cretaceous Fornuitit)ns 



of Sussex, London, p. 336, pi. xxii, fig. Jt. 



CoMPTONiA ELEOANS, Morris, 1854. Catalogue of British Fossils, 2nd ed., 



p. 50. 



— — Dujardin et Hitpr, 1862. Hist. Nat. Zooph. 



fichin. (Suites a Buffon), p. 408. 

 Stellaster eleoans, Forbes, 1878. In Dixon's Geology of Sussex 



(new edition, Jones), pp. 369, 370, 

 pi. xxii, fig, 9. 



Specific Characters. — Disc strongly convex, covered -with small polygonal 

 plates. Actinal interradial areas large. Arms well produced, the major radius 

 being at least three times as long as the minoi- radius. Tnterl)racliial arcs 

 paraboloid. 



Miiterial. — The specimen figured l)y Dixon, at that time in the Bowerbank 

 Collection, is now preserved in the British Museum of Natural History (E. 2507). 

 Both dorsal and ventral aspects are exposed. Another specimen showing an 

 impression of the ventral surface exists in the Oxford University ^Inseum. 



Dixon's specimen, however, can hardly be the type, since Gray (184-0) stated that 

 the specimens described by him were in the British Musenm or in the collection 

 of the Zoological Society. Forbes (18-48) refers only to specimens in the British 

 .Museum and the collection of the Marquess of Northampton. X'^o part of the 

 Bowerbank Collection is knoAvn to have come to the British ]\Iuseum before 1805. 

 The type specimen therefore mnst be either lost or still unrecognised in tlie 

 national collection. Since it was never figured it could never be identifieil with 

 certainty. It is therefore advisable to take the specimen E. 2567 as type. 



Description. — The disc is high in the central and radial regions. In the inter- 

 radial areas, however, post-mortem changes have cau.sed a collapse of the test 

 and the consequent production of deep triangular depressions. Tlie i)lates 

 covering the disc arc minute, polygonal, and closely fitting. The centrale is tlie 



