198 



NATURE 



[Jan. 4, 1877 



articulate directly with the centrodorsal basin, while their infero- 

 lateral angles are truncated so as to make room for the inter- 

 vening basals. 



The basals of Phanogenia appear to be in a condition inter- 

 mediate between that of Antedon and Aclinometra. Loven 

 describes them as internal and concealed, forming a small rosette 

 with a central pentagonal opening, and marked on its ventral 

 face by five sinuses, which receive processes from the sutures of 

 the first radials. 



We have thus a very interesting series of transitions from 

 Antedon to Pentacrinus ; firstly through Phanogenia and Aciino- 

 metra to Comaster ; thence to Solanocrinus costahi^, in which the 

 basals resemble those of Cot/iaster, but the centrodorsal basin is 

 elongated and visibly composite ; and finally to S.jageri, Gold- 

 fuss, in which the bas^ls are so wide that they are completely in 

 contact with one another all round, precisely as in Pentacrinus ; 

 this genus then only differs as far as the stem and basals are con- 

 cerned, from S. jcegeri, by the fact that its nodal cirrhus-bearing 

 stem-segments are not fused together, but separated from one 

 another by more or fewer of the internodal ones which do not 

 bear cirrhi. 



Solanocrinus thus constitutes, as already pointed out by Gold- 

 fuss, a very interesting intermediate form between the stalked 

 Pentacri7ti and the ordinary free-living ComatuUt, which are only 

 stalked in their young stages. 



Besides the above-mentioned four generic types, or rather five, 

 if Pictet be right in tx&c\xn^ S. jageri into a separate genus, 

 Lamarck's name Comatula also includes the beautiful little five- 

 armed Ophiocrinus from the Philippines ; unfortunately we do 

 not yet know either the condition of its basals or the anatomy 

 of its soft parts, and can therefore form no opinion as to its rela- 

 tions to the other members of the family. 



As these five or six types are all equally entitled to the name 

 Comatula, it becomes necessary in any systematic work on the 

 family to give them distinct generic or sub-generic names, espe- 

 cially as in one or two cases the same specific name has been 

 given to two or more types. Thus the Comattila multiradiata, 

 Gold fuss, is a Coviaster, while the C. multiradiata of Lamarck is 

 an Aclinometra ; and again the C. armata of Pourtales is an 

 Antedon, while C. armata, Semper, is an Aclinometra. 



For ordinary dredging work, however, on the British coasts, 

 where Antedon is the only representative ot the family, it is not 

 so necessary to discard a common and better known name in 

 favour of one which, although scientifically correct, and con- 

 siderably older, has only recently come into general use, espe- 

 cially when, as Mr, Stebbing remarks, its meaning and pro- 

 nunciation are alike difficult to determine ; and though the 

 designation Comatula rosacea may, scientifically regarded, be a 

 somewhat loose one, it is now so well known that the use of it is 

 not likely to lead to any serious mistakes in synonymy fmong 

 working naturalists. P. Herbert Carpenter 



Wiirzburg, Bavaria 



With reference to the names Antedon and Comatula, will 

 you allow me to say that the former has been applied to a genus 

 of lamellicorn beetles since the year 1832 ? Comatula has been 

 in use from nearly the beginning of the present century, and it is 

 not only found in the works of Fleming, Forbes, Sars, Owen, 

 G. H. Lewes ("Seaside Studies"), Carus, and other.-:, but it 

 must be a familiar word to many who have seen the splendid 

 tank of those crinoids in the Naples aquarium. And now that 

 we are bidden to change it "on the grounds of priority," may 

 we inquire if the "grounds" of long custom (in this case more 

 than sixty years) are to be invariably set aside? Dr. J. E. Gray, 

 who had a sort of mania for change, tried in 1848 to restore de 

 Freminville's name of Antedon. He went a step further, and, 

 after Pennant, adopted Linck's specific name (so far as Linck 

 had any idea of specific names, for they were unknown in his 

 day) of "decameros, " so that the advocates of absolute priority 

 will have to take ^^ Antedon decameros" as the designation of 

 Comatula rosacea. 



In Gemminger and von Harold's "Catalogus Coleopterorum," 

 Antedon is derived from hvri and ohhv, and consequently spelt 

 Antodon ; I do not see its application in either case. 



I should be glad to see the "rules of zoological nomencla. 

 ture" (Mr. Hughes means, I presume, those of the British As- 

 sociation) better observed if it led to the exclusion of such bar- 

 barisms as Butzkopf, Gatyghol, Sing- sing, Nabiroup, and others, 

 which many of the readers of Nature will probably be 

 astonished to find in our modem scientific nomenclature. May 



we inquire if such a description as that of the celebrated " Hister 

 australis,'" viz., " nigro-cyaneus, nitidus, subtus ater," which 

 would apply to hundreds of species of Histcridse, is entitled to 

 claim the protection of the law of priority? I think we may 

 sometimes fall back with advantage on the law of common sense, 

 or that, at any rate, it may be allowed to supplement the law of 

 priority. Francis P. Pascoe 



December 23, 1876 



Sea Fisheries 



My chief reason for again intruding on you is for the purpose 

 of supplying some omissions in Prof. Newton's quotations from 

 Prof. Baird's first Report. In this Prof Baird speaks of the 

 destructive agency of the blue-fish. He states that about a mil- 

 lion and a quarter of these fishes are caught annually on the New 

 England coast, but that any one who has watched the blue-fish 

 there must feel convinced that not one in a hundred o*" these fishes 

 is caught ; he allows twenty fish of other \dn<^s as being devoured 

 or mangled by each blue-fish daily, and then goes into a calcu- 

 lation of the thousands of millions of fish which must he destroyed 

 by the blue-fish. I am writing this from memory, but I believe 

 I am correct. Prof Baird then says (I give this verbatim), 

 p. 23 : — " Indeed I am quite inclined to assign to the blue-fish 

 the very first position among the injurious influences that have 

 affected the supply of fish on the coast. Yet, with all this destruc- 

 tion by the blue-fish, it is probable that there would not have been 

 so great a decrease of fish as at present but for the concurrent 

 action of man." 



This, the other cause of decrease, on which Prof. Baird lays 

 great stress, is the numerous traps and pounds along the coist ; 

 but in Clause XII. of the sime summary from which Prof. 

 Newton quoted, I find the following : — 



" As there is reason to believe that scup, and to a less degree 

 other shore-fish, as well as blue-fish, have several times disap- 

 peared at intervals to a greater or less extent, within the historic 

 period of New England, we cannot be certain that the use of 

 traps and pounds within the last ten years has actually produced 

 the scarcity complained of The fact, however, that these 

 engines do destroy the spawning fish in so great numbers renders 

 it very probable that they exercise a decided influence." 



Prof. Newton does not speak with his usual scientific precision 

 when he refers only to the cod, and doubtfully to the mackerel, 

 having decreased owing to the scarcity of the alewives — "cod, 

 haddock, and hake " being mentioned in the same paragraph. 

 Nor does it seem to me quite worthy of my friend, in discussing 

 the probabilities of overfishing in the sea, to try to prove his 

 case by bringing forward an instance of overfishing in the rivers 

 leading to a smaller supply of food at a certain season for purely 

 sea fish on the coast, and therefore a decrease in those sea fish. 



Dogfish are " predatory and mischievous : " they plunder the 

 nets, and they tear the nets in pieces. 



Athenreum Club, December 29 E. W. H. Holdsworth 



[Pressure upon our space has necessitated a curtailment of this 

 letter. This correspondence must now cease. — Ed.] 



The " Sidereal Messenger" 

 In Nature (vol. xv. p. 49), in a notice of Mr. Knobel's 

 " Catalogue of the Literature of Sidereal Astronomy," attention 

 is called to the rarity of the Sidereal Messenger. We have, in the 

 library of this Observatory, only one copy of that periodical. I 

 hope, however, soon to be in possession of a few copies of vol. i. 

 If so I shall take }/leasure in sending one of them to the Royal 

 Astronomical Society. All of Prof Mitchel's measures of double 

 stars (about 300) are now in the hands of the printer and will be 

 published before the close of the year. Ormond Stone ' 



Cin. Obs., September 12 ; 





South Polar Depression of the Barometer 



Mr. Clement Ley, writing in Nature (vol, xv. p. 15 

 thinks that the great depression of the barometer throughout ti 

 region round the South Pole as compared with that round tl_ 

 North Pole, is " mainly due to superior evaporation in the wat« 

 hemisphere generally." This seems an inadequate cause, foi 

 evaporation must be small in the very low teaiperaturfs which 

 appear to be constant at all seasons in high southern latitudes. I 

 am convinced that the cause of the barometric depress!, n round 

 the South Pole is the centrifugal force of the west winds whici 

 revolve round the Pole, forming, in Maury's words, "an ever 

 lasting cyclone on a great scale." A similar cyclone is formec 



