10 Dr. P. H. Carpenter 07i the 



will be evident from the following passage * : — " Carpenter 

 and Waclismutli call the ' subradials ' the ' basals ' in all 

 cases where they occur, and the lower plates ' under-basals ; ' 

 but where there are no ' subradials ' they follow the well- 

 established nomenclature in calling the first circle of plates 

 ' basals.' " These very plates, however, are recognized by 

 other palseontologists as representing the subradials, wliich 

 Miller says are not found in monocyclic Crinoids. It is 

 unfortunate that a work which is likely to be so generally 

 used by students and collectors should in this respect be 

 some years behind the times. The only American writers 

 on Crinoids besides Miller f who have not yet publicly 

 adopted the rational nomenclature are Hall, Grant, Ulrich, 

 White, and Whitfield ; but I am not aware that any one of 

 them has written on dicyclic Crinoids since 1882, so that 

 they have had no need to make a decision. One would have 

 thought that the conversion in succession of Messrs. Wetherby, 

 W^orthen, and Eingueberg would have led Miller to reconsider 

 his position, which is at present a somewhat isolated one, as 

 is shown in the accompanying table (pp. 8 and 9) ; and he can- 

 not therefore any longer claim to be using " the established 

 or prevaling methods of description'" as he did in 1883. 



1 have endeavoured to show that the German paleontolo- 

 gists do not always employ the term basals when they might 

 advantageously do so. Fewkes, on the other hand, has used 

 it too freely. Keferring to certain plates which appear on 

 the abactinal hemisome of the young Amphiura, he says that 

 they " form in the interradii, and may therefore be called 

 interradials or basals ; " | and he continues : — " The first set 

 of interradial plates may be known as the abaxial basals or 

 first interradials." In the next line these are called " abaxial 

 interradials," and a little further on (p. 130) he mentions a 

 new plate as " beginning to form between an abaxial and an 

 adaxial interradial." Replying to my criticisms on the loose- 

 ness of his terminology § and the way in which he has con- 

 tused terms which previous writers on Crinoid morphology 



* * North American Geology aud Pa lie ontology,' Ciiiciuuati, 1889, 

 p. 212. 



t Since the above was T\'ritten Messrs. Miller and Gurley h;ive pub- 

 lished descriptions of some new Crinoids, in which the term subradials is 

 still employed — " UesLiiption of some new (Jenera and Species of Echino- 

 dermata from the Coal measures aud Subcarbouiferous rocks of Indiana, 

 Missouri, and Iowa,'' Journ. Cincinn. S(!C. Nat. Hist. 1890, vol. xiii. p. 3. 



J "On the Development of the Calcareous Plates of Amp/nura/^ Bull. 

 Mus. Comp. ZooL 1887, vol. xiii. p. 128. 



§ " On the Development of the Apical Plates in Amphiura sqiiamataj^ 

 Quart. Jouru. Micr. Sci. 1887, vol. xxviii. p. 313. 



