WYVILLE THOMSON 63 



interest attaches to the representatives of that ancient and 

 wonderfully beautiful group, the HexactineUida, in which 

 we find Euplectella, the " Venus' flower basket " of the 

 Philippine Islands, and Hyalonema, the " glass rope " 

 sponge. 



In the Coelenterata the work of greatest novelty and 

 distinction was certainly that of the late Professor Moseley. 

 His remarkable report on " Corals " contains a section on 

 the HydrocoraUinse, which is full of original discoveries of 

 great value which have now been incorporated in all text- 

 books of zoology. He confirmed the view that Millepora 

 is a stony Hydroid, and he was able to prove that all the 

 Stylasteridse also belong to that group, and incidentally his 

 work overthrew the old-established group of the Tabulate 

 Corals. In another section of this report he gives an 

 account of the important discovery, which he made at the 

 Philippine Islands, that Heliopora, the blue coral, is really 

 an Alcyonarian. 



Amongst the Echinoderm reports, that on the Crinoidea 

 is perhaps the most interesting and important. It may be 

 recalled that it was the discovery by G. 0. Sars in 1864 of the 

 stalked Crinoid Rhizocrinus, a member of the Jurassic and 

 Cretaceous family Apiocrinidee, still Uving in the deep fjords 

 of Norway, that stimulated Sir WyvUle Thomson and Dr. 

 W. B. Carpenter to promote the cruises of the " Lightning " 

 in 1868, and of the " Porcupine " in 1869 and 1870, and thus 

 led up to the " Challenger " expedition. Sir Wyville had 

 intended himself to describe the stalked Crinoids, and had 

 made some progress in the examination and classification of 

 the specimens and in the preparation of some of the plates 

 when his break-down in health prevented any further work of 

 the kind. The reports on these and on the Comatulida were 

 eventually prepared by Dr. Carpenter's distinguished son, 

 Dr. P. H. Carpenter, who as a lad had been his father's 

 assistant on one of the cruises of the " Porcupine." The 

 " Challenger " results definitely showed that, in place of 



