common Crino'ul yamea. 39 



Mr. Clark's statements concerning the name Encrinun 

 involve more serious questions. Passiiif^ over various writers 

 after ITj.s, he stops at Bhimenbach (177i», ' Haiulb, d. Natur- 

 pt'scliichtc '), and finds that the name mu.st be aj)plied to the 

 ordinary Pentacrtuitx listeria^ which i.s now generally called 

 IsocriuiuH by writers on crinoids. This may be the correct 

 inleronce, but it seems iiard tiiat the absurdity should have 

 to be fatluTfd on Blumenbach. That eminent naturalist 

 professed to be writing a manual f<»r the elementary student 

 and the amateur rather than a complete .systematic treatise, 

 and in dealing with the recent Ecliinoderma, or Cartilaginea 

 as he called them, he used oidy the commonly known names. 

 Echinus, Asterius, and Encrinus. Had he been askci why 

 he referred the Isis asteria of LiniuBUS to Encri'nux, ho would 

 doubtless have replied in the words of John Ellis (1762, Phil. 

 Trans, lii. p, 358), " As it comes nearest to the fossils called 

 encrini, or lilii lapidei [^'V], 1 shall keep that name, and call 

 it Encrinus, ete." But in the second part of the same work, 

 in the Abschnitt * Von den Versteinerungen,' we tind " Die 

 Encriniten und Pentacriniten " quite clearly distinguishe i, 

 and it was with the latter alone that Blumenbach compared 

 his Encrinus as(eria. A few years later (1790, Voigt's Mag. 

 f. d. neueste a. d. Physik, vi. lief t 4, pp. 1-17) he was severe 

 on Ilollinann for having confused Pentacrinus with En- 

 crinus. Since the days of Lachmund (1GG9) the name 

 Encrinus had been in constant use for the Liliuin lapideum 

 of the Muschelkalk, and it cannot be supposed that Blumen- 

 bach had the smallest intention of diverting it from this well- 

 known use. To ]>re8erve this older meaning, however, we 

 are compelled by the modern rules of nomenclature to tind 

 some instance of its application before 1779 atid after 1758. 



Mr, Springer (1909) and Mr. A. H. Clark (1908, Proc. 

 U.S. Nat. Mus. xxxiv. p. 517) both refer to Encrinus coral- 

 loides Andrea (17G3), but both have had the misfortune to 

 quote Andrea3 incorrectly though diversely. The figures 

 actually referred to l)y Andreio represent stem- fragments that 

 cannot, in my opinion, be referred with certainty to any 

 species or genus. If this is to be the basis of Encrinusy tho 

 name will simply disappear from actual use. To rescue it, 

 something earlier and more intelligible must be sougiit for. 



The desired application seemed to have been found in 

 (.'. F. Schulze (1760, * Betrachtung d. versteinerten See- 

 sterne ') ; but Mr. Clark asks why I should take this and not 

 take Schulze's DecacnimoSy Polyactinisy and Triscfedecacnimos- 

 instead of the later Antedon and Actinonietra. The sim[)Ieat 

 answer to this is that, whereas I have had occiision to go fully 



