472 Miscellaneous. 



Observations. 



It is most likely that when Dr. Marenzeller speaks of C. Mon- 

 tag^li as a distinct British species he does so on the authority of 

 specimens which I sent to the Vienna Museum in 1886 as " Cucu- 

 iiHir'ia Montagui, Fleming, Polperro.'"' The specimens sent were 

 taken from the same bottle as those here described, but were pro- 

 bably smaller than A and B (which are the largest I have) but 

 larger than C. 



Now the curious circumstance is that C. Montagui seems unques- 

 tionably synonymous with C. Lefevrii, Th. Barrois, and Semperia 

 Drummondii, Herouard ; Marenzeller assigns these names as 

 synonj^ms of C. KoelliJceri, while he keeps C. Montagui as a 

 distinct species from C. KoeUil-eri, and refers to Colochirus Lacazei, 

 Herouard, as a synonym. This last I cannot thus recognize 

 as a synonym of C. Montagui unless I am allowed to suppose 

 that Herouard has mistaken the position of some of the spicules 

 which he figures ; moreover, figs. 8 and 18 would be wanting in 

 accuracy, but fig. 11 accurately represents the form and mode of 

 growth of the very minute spicules which I have mentioned as 

 investing the extremities of the tentacles of the specimen C of 

 C. Montagui. 



An interesting point has come out in this investigation. It is a 

 circumstance quite new to me that in two specimens of the same 

 species the mode of growth in a spicule should proceed on two 

 entirely different plans. In C. Montagui (B) I have described the 

 two additional foramina made to the original four-holed spicule as 

 almost always being added to the extremities of the spicule ; while in 

 C. Lefevrii, Th. Barrois (presumably the same species), the drawings 

 show the additional foramina as being added on laterally. In the 

 Naples C. KoelUl-eri the additions to the original spicule appear 

 always to take place laterally (that is, out of the central line), even 

 if added at the extremities it is at the side of the extremity and not 

 apically. In this respect there is agreement with C. Lefevrii. 



Thyone Portloclcii, Forbes. 



I believe this .species to be another synonym of C. Montagui, for 

 the following reasons i — In 1864 or 1865 I wrote to Belfast, pro- 

 bably — but my memory fails me — to Professor Wyville Thomson, 

 to endeavour to clear up the question what HoJotlmria Drummondii, 

 Thompson, and Thyone PortlocMi, Forbes, were. As well as I recol- 

 lect, I learnt that the former was not to be found in the Belfast 

 Museum ; but a piece of the skin of the latter \a as sent to me. 

 Among my collection of Holothuroidean spicules at the present 

 moment is a mounting thus labelled : " Cucuniaria Montagui, 

 Fleming, Belfast Museum." Unfortunately there is no further 

 information ; but I suspect that a re-examination of the specimen 



