Gii Mr. A. H. Clark on a new 



LXXVI. — A new Unstcdked Crinoid from Christmas Island. 

 By Austin Hobart Clark. 



While visiting the British Museum recently I found among 

 the collections there a curious little comasterid which had 

 been obtained at Christmas Island. I urged Professor Bell 

 to describe it in order that I might mention it in my report 

 upon the * Investigator ' crinoids, but with his characteristic 

 generosity he suggested that it would be more fitting were 

 I to do it, as I had become so deeply engrossed in the study 

 of these animals. 



This little comasterid represents a new species of the 

 genus Comissia, a genus including eight species, occurring 

 from South-eastern Africa to Ceylon and thence eastward to 

 the Philippine Inlands, all of which have been described 

 since the publication of the ' Challenger' report. 



The species of the geiiu-i Comissia never have more than 

 ten arms ; the cirri are always numerous and well-developed, 

 and the distal cirrus segments always bear spines or tubercles 

 on the dorsal surface, this serving to differentiate them at 

 once from the species of Comatula and Cominia, the cirri of 

 which are invariably smooth. 



Comissia has no very close relatives in the East Indian 

 region, though it falls in the same subfamily, Cajnllasterinse, 

 as Cajnllaster and Comatella, but in the West Indies it is 

 represented by the allied Leptonemaster and Comatilia. 



The species of Comissia are all sublittoral, occurring 

 between 17 and 100 fathoms ; though none of them inhabit 

 water of any great depth, none have ever been found at the 

 surface. 



The new form described below differs somewhat abruptly 

 from all the others in the genus in the great length of the 

 teeth of the comb on the earlier pinnules, and by the large 

 proportion of pinnulars occupied by the comb. It may be 

 described as follows : — 



Comissia pectinifer^ sp. n. 



Description. — Centrodorsal moderately large, with a mode- 

 rately large flat dorsal pole and three closely crowded 

 marginal rows of cirrus sockets. 



Cirri xxxiv. 14-16 (usually 16), 14 mm. long; the eighth 

 is a transition segment ; the longer proximal segments are 

 nearly twice as long as broad, slightly constricted centrally ; 



