Bibliographical Notices. 



349 



lead a more or less free life, loosely rooted in the mud, or attached 

 temporarily by its cirri. Indications of this semi-free detached con- 

 dition have been observed in several species belonging to the genera 

 Pentacririus and Metacrinus. This character was originally men- 

 tioned by Sir Wyville Thomson some years ago in his account of 

 the ' Porcupine ' dredgings, and we are led to refer to the now com- 

 plete confirmation of his conclusions, since one of the members of 

 the ' Talisman ' expedition sought -to prove in a popular article that 

 Sir Wyville Thomson was wrong, and insinuated, on the strength of 

 an inaccurato quotation of his words, that his conclusions were 

 drawn from the examination of a single example only ; whereas it 

 was clearly stated to occur in two species, and in all the specimens 

 then known of one of them (about twenty in number). 



In this Report is included the description of that most remarkable 

 Comatulid, Thaumatocrinus renovatus, whose archaic characters and 

 striking affinities with several of the extinct forms of stalked 

 Crinoids have been already published by Dr. Herbert Carpenter in 

 the Phil. Trans, for 1883. 



The accompanying Table, extracted from a more extended one in 

 the Eeport in which the Comatulid genera are also included, will 

 indicate briefly the geographical and bathymetrical range of the 

 genera of recent stalked Crinoids so far as at present known. 



In summarizing the bathymetrical distribution of the recent Cri- 

 noids, the author remarks on the custom which has prevailed of late 

 years of regarding the stalked Crinoids as pre-eminently abyssal 

 types, and considers that too much stress has been laid upon Sir 

 Wyville Thomson's conjecture, that they probably formed a " rather 

 important element in the abyssal fauna." Prom the statistics now 

 given it would appear that subsequent researches have not altogether 

 confirmed these views. Thus, taking 500 fathoms as the limit of 

 the continental line, it is found that twenty-four of the thirty-two 

 recent species of stalked Crinoids, or 75 per cent., occur within this 

 limit ; while nine of these living at depths less than 100 fathoms 

 may be called littoral. On the other hand, " thirteen species have 

 been found in the abyssal zone, two of which are also littoral, while 



* A. Atlantic. C. Caribbean Sea. S. Southern Ocean. P. Pacific. 

 E. The more or less enclosed seas of the East-Indian Archipelago, between 

 Cape York and Singapore. 



