NO. 1664. A NEW JURASSIC CltlXOID—SrRlNOl'JR. 187 



sition is one of far broader significance, and involves the i^aramount 

 interest of the scientific public. 



I am mnch in sympathy with the protest voiced by Dr. G. A. 

 Boulenger, at the Dublin meeting (1908) of the British Association, 

 against the extreme application of the rule of priority, where the 

 effect would be, as in this case, to overthrow old and well under- 

 stood names, or to transfer them from one object to another. He 

 renews a suggestion made by Sir E. Ray Lankester ten years earlier, 

 that there should be created by the International Congress some 

 kind of committee, having the powers of a court of last resort, to 

 decide upon the application of such an exception to the rule of 

 priority in particular cases. 



In the meantime, and until overruled by some such higher au- 

 thority, I shall maintain that, irrespective of the merits of their 

 original titles to priority, the names of Enerinus and Millericrinus 

 have become valid simply by the lapse of time, by long usage in the 

 sense in which they are now generally understood; and that by 

 reason of universal acquiescence in such use for nearly a century, 

 zoologists are now estopped from disputing them. In this way, by 

 analogy to the practice which prevails in courts of justice touching 

 the most solemn rights of property, a presumably just conclusion 

 can be reached independent of the rule of priority, and without 

 impairing its force in cases to which no such considerations of 

 public policy apply. With these two names thus firmly established, 

 that of Isofrrinus is ipso facto confirmed, and I am enabled to proceed 

 with further comment on the species under consideration, without 

 the necessity of searching for a new generic appellation. 



In view of the generally assumed absence of infrabasals in " Pen- 

 faerinus''^ {serisu P. H. C.) and Metacrinus twenty years ago, and 

 in the recent species until the past year, it is interesting to find their 

 presence now fully demonstrated in no less than six species; two 

 fossil — this and de Loriol's /. lenthardi — and four recent ones within 

 the past few months. Doederlein described them in Metacrinus 

 acutus in November, 1907,* and they were independently discovered 

 by Mr. Austin H. Clark, who communicated the facts to me under 

 date of November 29, 1907, in two other species of Metacrinus., and 

 also in Isocrinus decorus.^ 



The infrabasals in our species were only observable in a single 

 specimen, a rather small individual, in which the stem was broken 

 off at the top joint, by which they had been covered (Plate 4, fig. 

 5a). As thus exposed they are perfectly distinguishable, and are 

 somewhat larger than those figured by de Loriol. 



<* Die Gestielten Crinoiden (lev Siboga Expedition, p. 20. 

 » Proc. U. S. Nat, Mus., XXXIII, p. 671-676. 



