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XIV.—THE ECHINODERM FAUNA OF THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. By F. 
JEFFREY BELL, M.A., Src. R.M.S., Prorressor or Comparative ANATOMY 
AND Zootoey 1n Kine’s Cottecr, Lonpon ; Cor. Mem. Linn. Soc., N. S. Watzs. 
Plates XX XTX. anp XL. 
[CommunicateD By Prorrssor Hanpon, Juty, 1887.] 
A FEW years ago we had no exact knowledge of the Echinoderm Fauna of the 
island of Ceylon; and though it has been a British possession since 1815—and 
stands, as it were, invitingly in the midst of the Indian Ocean—much still remains 
to be done before we can hope to have a satisfactory knowledge of its extensive 
Fauna. 
In the year 1882, when only four species of Echinoderms were known from 
the island, Dr. Ondaatje, a Colonial Surgeon in Ceylon, arrived in England with 
a collection of no less than nineteen species of the group, many of which were 
most admirably preserved. These specimens, with others, Dr. Ondaatje was 
good enough to present to the Trustees of the British Museum, and they formed 
the subject of a short Paper by myself.* With the possible exception of a single 
Crinoid, none of the species were new to science, and they led rather to the belief 
that further investigation would reveal the presence at Ceylon of forms already 
known from some other part of the Great Ocean, as Mr. Theodore Lymanf calls 
the Indian Ocean and the warmer part of the Pacific. 
This belief has been shown to be well founded; but it does not, on that 
account, seem to me to diminish the interest which attaches to collections from 
Ceylon. For a long term of years naturalists have been unceasingly adding to 
the catalogue of the faunal wealth of the world, and the labour of description has 
often been found to be so great as to leave no time or opportunity for revision or 
comparison; it is, to some minds, a relief to turn from the extension to the 
consolidation of our knowledge, and to prepare the way for comprehensive 
monographs. . 
Just before Dr. Ondaatje left Ceylon, Professor Haeckel reached that fertile 
island; he entrusted the description of his collection of Echinoderms to 
Dr. Alfred Walter, for some time an assistant in the Zoological Institute at Jena. 
* Ann, & Mag,, N. H. (5), x., pp. 218-225. 
+ Preliminary List of Living Ophiuride, &c., Cambridge, [U.S.A.], 1880, p. 2. 
TRANS. ROY. DUB. SOC., N.S. VOL. III. A 
