346 Bibliographical Notices. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Report upon the Crinoidea collected during the Voyage of II. M.S. 

 ' Challenger' during the Tears 1873-76. — The Stalked Crinoids. 

 By P. Herbert Carpenter, D.Sc, Assistant Master at Eton 

 College. Pp. i-xii, 1-442 ; 69 plates, \_lteport on the Scientific, 

 Results oftheVoyage of H. M.S. 'Challenger.'— Zoology, part xxxii.] 

 Published by Order of Her Majesty's Government, 1884. 



Few among the varied forms of invertebrate organisms have exer- 

 cised such a fascination over naturalists as the Crinoids. Ever 

 since the first living Pentacrinus was brought to notice by Guet- 

 tard in 1755 a feeling not far removed from romance has been 

 almost inseparably associated with tbe recent members of this 

 group of animals, a sentiment at first perhaps mainly due to tbeir 

 beauty aud rarity; but later, when their relations became known, 

 to the fact that these treasures from the deep bore positive testimony 

 to the existence in our seas of the survivors of a race which had 

 been thought to have long since passed away, and were to be known 

 only in a fossil state. 



It was whilst Dr. W. B. Carpenter and the late Sir Wyville 

 Thomson were studying the structure and development of Crinoids 

 together in Ireland in 1868 that the scheme was matured of 

 applying to the Admiralty for assistance in undertaking a series of 

 deep-sea investigations. The ' Lightning ' and ' Porcupine ' expe- 

 ditions were the result ; and to the success attending these first 

 systematic dredgings in great depths the despatch of the ' Chal- 

 lenger ' expedition itself was directly due. The Crinoids have 

 thus been associated in a special manner with the ' Challenger ' 

 expedition. 



Sir Wyville Thomson, who for some years had devoted much 

 attention to the stalked Crinoids, had proposed himself to undertake 

 the preparation of the Eeportupon the collection of this group made 

 during the expedition ; and he had also arranged with Prof. Alex. 

 Agassiz to iuclude a description of the Crinoids dredged by the 

 U.S. Steamer ' Blake ' in the Caribbean Sea, in order that a mono- 

 graph of all the species at present known might be produced. On 

 the lamented death of Sir Wyville Thomson the respective collec- 

 tions were entrusted to Dr. P. Herbert Carpenter; and the excel- 

 lent report just published fully warrants the opinion that the work 

 could not have been placed in more able hands. It is worthy of 

 our great national expedition ; it is worthy of Dr. Herbert Car- 

 penter's acknowledged reputation, which it will enhance and crown ; 

 and it is a worthy tribute of a son to a father whose name is 

 honoured among the biologists of all nations, and whose investiga- 

 tions in the same group of animals are a monument of patient 

 research and logical reasoning. 



Twenty-one years ago, that is to say up to 1864, only three 

 species of living stalked Crinoids were known to science ; we are 



