Generic Xame o/'Asteriaa sanguinolenta. 473 



same extent as an earlier [is] to be wholly cancelled;" so 

 Agassiz woiiUl have done better had he kept his expressive 

 name to himself, and Cribreila must tall out of our nomen- 

 clature aUoL^rother. 



But in this case what is to be done with Asterias sanguino- 

 lenta? (Jtie would imaj^ino that it was in sad want of a 

 generic name when Edward Forbes perpetrated the robbery 

 which is now only (after half a century!) revealed to a world 

 that has been taught to revere his name. In mitigation we 

 may say that it might have so seemed to him ; for, just before 

 his work was issued from the press, and certainly after it left 

 his hands, Gray pro])OS3d the name of Ilo.nricia for the Afite- 

 rias ocidata of Pennant, which is the Asterias sanquinolenta 

 of O. F. Miiller*; and, indeed, he thought perhaps he was 

 justified, for he had placed the species in Nardo's genus 

 Linckia (Mem. Wern. Soc. viii. p. 120) in 1839, and dis- 

 covered his error and the fact that Cribreila was a synonym 

 for that name a little later. 



The claims of Gray's name are incontestable ; the necessity 

 for chano-infj the sii2:nificancc of such a well-known term as 

 Cribreila is most distressing, and I am very sorry that it has 

 fallen to my lot to have thus to upset a nomenclature which 

 we all know and which, I fear, I shall in my heart continue 

 to use. 



I cannot conceive how or why succeeding writers have let 

 the matter stand in tliis disorderly manner so long. Some 

 — to cite the most careful of them, Mr. Sladen — write Cribreila 

 (pars); but certainly Agassiz does not include anything, either 

 recent or fossil, under his generic name which can by any 

 possibility be supposed to be congeneric with A. sanguino- 

 lenta. 



The correct synonymy of the genus appears to stand 

 thus : — 



Henricia. 



Henricia, Gray, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. vi. (1840), p. 184. 



Linkia, Forbes, not Nardo, Mem. Wern. Soc. viii. (1839), p. 120. 



Crihella, Forbes, not A^^., Brit. Starf. (1841), p. 106. 



Cribreila, Liilken, Gronl. Echinod. (1857), p. 30, et mult. al. usque ad 



Sladen in Chall. Rep., Ast. (1889), p. 540. 

 Eehinaster, M. Tr. Syst. Ast. (1842), p. 22 (pars). 



♦ The dates appear to be: — the part of Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (vi. 

 p. 184) which contained Gray's name Henricia was published Nov. 1840; 

 Forbes's p. 100, on which Cribella appeared, was probably published 

 Dec. 1st, 1841. Messrs. Gurney and Jackson have been so obliging asto 

 give me the dates of publication of the six parts of Forbes's ' British 

 Starfishes ; ' thev were published on the first of each month from October 

 1840 to March 1841. But the work as a whole must be quoted 1841. 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 6. Vol. vi. 34 



