BIHANG TILL K. SV. VET.-AKAD. HANDL. BAND 13. AFD. IV. N:0 5. 169 



1879. Schizaster japonicus Al. Ag. Proc. Amer. Acad., XIV, 



p. 212. 

 » » » » 1881. Challenger Rep., p. 



202, t. XXXVI, 

 f. 8-13. 

 Under this species Linn^us in thc S. X. ed. 10 referred 

 to GuALTiERi t. 109 iig. C, which is a good representation of the 

 wcll-known Schizaster canalifenis Lamck., but at the same 

 time subjoined under the E. Spatagus other figures of that 

 same species: Rondelet's woodcut^), rude enough to be taken 

 almost as readily for the Echinocardium cordatum; Bonanni's 

 figure, a repetition of that given by SciLLA-); and Imperati's'), 

 both of the Sch. canaliferus, — a dubiousness which is 

 best accounted for by thc assumption that the original speci- 

 men of the E. lacunosns could no longer be compared. It 

 was no doubt its absence that led to another serious con- 

 fusion. 



GuALTiERi had committed a sinwular mistake. On his 109th 

 plate he had given two figures, C and D, the former a good 

 represention of the dorsal side of a denuded Schizaster canali- 

 ferus Lamck., the latter an indifferent one of the ventral aspect 

 of an Echinocardium cordatum Penn., covered with its spines. 

 In the explanation of the plate both are treated as differcnt 

 views of one and the same species, C, »vulgatissimus», »whitish», 

 and a reference is added, to Bkeynius, p. 61, t. V, fig. 1, 2, 

 who describes and figures an Echinocardium cordatum frorft 

 the Adriatic. Now, of this species a specimen from the 

 North Sea had been described and figured by Lister, as early 

 as in 1685, and in 1746 Linnj<;us had introduced it with that 

 ({uotation alonc into thc Fauna Suecica, having probably 

 received it from the shores of the Cattegat, where it is com- 

 raon. On account of its extreme fragility it rnay be readily 

 imagined that thc specimen had soon been löst, for when the 

 species reappears in his writings Linn^us evidently has be- 

 come very doubtful where to place it. Lister's dclineation 

 shows its ventral aspect, like that figure IJ with which GuAL- 

 TIERI associated his fi<>-. C as the dorsal view of one and the 



') De piscibus mariuis, Leyden 1554, p. 580; repeated in: Hist. en- 

 tiére des Doissons, I. p. 416. 



2) De Corp. mar., t. 25. f. 2. 



■*) Historife iiaturalis libri XXXIX, ex italica in linguam conversa 

 latinam. Coloniaj, 1605, p. 911. 



