486 Mr. F. A. Bather on some 



I have already alluded * to my omission on p. 323 of the 

 words " in Baerocrinus " from their statement that the Azygos 

 plate is as much radial as interradial, but Messrs. Wachsmuth 

 and Springer will not accept my explanation. They now say 

 (p. 390), " We stated correctly that the ' Azygos of Baero- 

 crinus is neither radial nor interradial ' for it rests between 

 two radials and alternates with the basals ; but to say the 

 same thing of Bomocrinus, Dendrocrinus, etc. would be 

 ridiculous." 



Whether correctly or no, Messrs. Wachsmuth and Springer 

 never did use the words which they have here put between 

 inverted commas, but they used the same words as I used, 

 although I did not put them between commas. It is odd, by 

 the way, that they should misquote themselves three times on 

 one page. 



They were (in 1886) contrasting the anal of Antedon with 

 the azygos of Baerocrinus ; the former they said was simply 

 an interradial, the latter as much radial as interradial. 

 Remembering that only three years before they had dropped 

 the radial origin of this azygos plate, they now wished to 

 correct themselves ; consequently the important point in the 

 1886 statement seemed to be the partly radial position of the 

 azygos plate in Baerocrinus. But they continued to speak 

 about the palfeontological history of that plate, calling it 

 merely the azygos plate. In this latter half of the para- 

 graph, as I have pointed out, they extended the term to all 

 Fistulata. I naturally supposed that if there were any 

 importance in this partly radial position of the azygos in 

 Baerocrinus^ it lay in the fact that the azygos as a morpho- 

 logical entity was partly radial in position. That I was right 

 in my supposition is proved by various passages in the present 

 paper, where they lay stress on the fact that the azygos plate 

 invariably alternates with the basals. 



As to the point that it would be ridiculous to say the same 

 thing of Homocrinus and Dendrocrinus, I reply that it is 

 ridiculous to say that this plate is interradial in Baerocrinus ; 

 it is only interradial in the same sense as that in which any 

 radial may be said so to be. If, however, it could ever be 

 correctly called interradial, so could the azygos plates of 

 Boplocrinus and Uybocrinus, and where exactly the line 

 should be drawn I do not see. 



I therefore maintain that I was justified, when summarizing , 

 in the omission of special reference to Haerocrinus. 



* Ann. & Mag. Nat, Hist. [6] v. p. 486. 



