38 Dr. F. A. Bather on some 



Desor (1845, Bull. Soc. Sci. nat. Neuchatel, i. p. 214) for 

 ** Pentacrines ayant la face articulaire des anneaux de la tigc 

 crenelde sur son pourtoiir. Jusqu'ici on ne connaissait que 

 des fragments de tiges de ce type. On en avait meme 

 distingue plusieurs especes, les Pentacrinus suhteres Miinst. 

 et P. pentagonalis Gldf. ; niais on n'avait aucune idde des 

 calices. M. Agassiz vient de d^couvrir, parnii les Crinoides 

 du Musde de Bale, un calice en forme de gland, dont la base 

 presente une articulation tout-^-fait semblable a celle du 

 Pentacrinus suhteres. Ce savant en a fait un genre a part, 

 sous le nom de Balanocrinus, et il pense qu'on devra lui 

 associer toutes les tiges qui prdsentent ce mode d'articulation." 

 Is it not perfectly clear that, had the matter rested here, we 

 should have been bound to adopt Balanocrinus Desor ex 

 Agassiz ]\JS., with genotype either B. suhteres or B. penta- 

 ffonalis? This, as it happens, is precisely what we all have 

 done, the former species being taken as genotype. Why 

 then docs Mr, Clark say we are wrong? Because, as 

 de Loiiol has told us (1879, ' Crin. foss. Suisse,' pp. 163, 

 175, and 1888, ' Paleont. franQ. Crin. jurass.' p. 295), the 

 " calice en forme de gland " proved to be nothing but a stem- 

 fragment of il/?7/gn'c?'i'rjMs {7 M. matthei/i), swollen owing to 

 the attacks of a parasite. But this fragment, being neither 

 described nor named by Agassiz, afforded no species to serve 

 as genotype. It is true that the supposed discovery o£ a 

 calyx led Agassiz to iound his genus ; but this quotation 

 from Desor shows that the diagnostic character was derived 

 from the joint-face of the stem. Clearly Agassiz thought he 

 was dealing with a Pentacrinus suhteres, and that species, if 

 any, would have been his genotype. To try to avoid the 

 natural conclusions from these undisputed facts requires more 

 than legal subtlety and brings no advantage to anybody. 



" Metacrinus,^^ says Mr. Clark quite correctly, "was first 

 diagnosed in 1882." I did not in 1898 give any other date, 

 or any date at all, since I was not discussing Metacrinus. I 

 did, however, take from the paper to which he refers (P. H. 

 Carpenter, 1882, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard, x. p. 167) 

 a statement as to the origin of the name. It may, nevertheless, 

 be pointed out that Carpenter's reference to Metacrinus in 

 that paper (1882) was rather in the nature of a passing 

 allusion to Wyville Thomson's MS. name, and that no 

 species was then described or even mentioned by name. 

 Therefore in the Echinoderma volume of the ' Treatise on 

 Zoology ' (1900) it seemed more useful to refer the student 

 to the complete description in the ' Challenger ' Report of 

 1884. 



