1880. J MR. F. J. BELL ON A NEW GENUS OF ECHINOIDS. 43 



4. On Palaolampas, a new Grenus of the Ecliinoidea. By F. 

 Jeffrey Bell, B.A., F.R.M.S., F.Z.S., Professor of Com- 

 parative Anatomy in King's College, London. 



[Received January 27, 1880.] 

 (Plate IV.) 



Tliere is, perhaps, no experience which is more full of instruction 

 to the zoologist than the discovery of forms as recent that have been 

 previously regarded as extinct. In no group of the animal king- 

 dom have the explorations of the last few years reaped so large a 

 harvest as among the Echinoidea, as Salenia and Conoclypeus^ would 

 suffice to bear witness, were not such forms as Phormosoma and 

 Asthenosoma still more remarkable. But there is yet another possi- 

 bility — possible, indeed, in the case of terrestrial animals, but infinitely 

 more probable in the case of deep-sea forms ; it is this : we may at times 

 be fortunate enough to find examples of genera which, though hitherto 

 not registered as fossil, yet proclaim by their general aspect, structure, 

 and relations their archaic characters and the great length of time 

 during which they must have existed as distinct forms. Prime 

 among such creatures stands the remarkable Brisinga, which, though 

 " the most primitive and therefore the oldest of all Echiuoderms,"^ 

 has not yet been known to naturalists for a quarter of a century^. 



Very far from being either as important or as interesting as this 

 ancient Starfish, the irregular Echinid which I now propose to de- 

 scribe to the Society is of interest as filling a gap in our series of forms. 

 Nearly every naturalist who has seen it has at first thought that he 

 had seen it before ; but further investigation has, in all cases, led to 

 the view that the form is different from any yet observed. To this 

 statement there is but one exception : Dr. R. H. Traquair, F.R.S.E., 

 of the Museum of Science and Art in Edinburgh, informed me some 

 months ago that he had a specimen generically, if not specifically 

 identical, which had come into his hands when the collection of the 

 late Dr. S. P. Woodward was dispersed. Dr. Traquair most kindly 

 and generously offered to send me notes and drawings of this speci- 

 men ; but the arduous duties of his post at Edinburgh hare been 

 hitherto an obstacle in his way ; and while I regret that I have to 

 describe the specimen in the collection of the British Museum without 

 giving an account of the Edinburgh example, I have felt too much 

 sympathy with my friend and colleague to have pressed him too hardly 

 to add to his labours. Some day, perhaps, in the future Dr. Traquair 

 will himself give an account of the form under his care. 



The specimen now to be described came into the possession of the 

 Trustees of the British Museum so long ago as January 1852 ; but it 



' A. Agassiz, Bull. M. 0. Z. v. no. 9, p. 190. 



^ G. O. Sars, ' Researches on the Struoture and AfRnitv of the genus Brisinga ' 

 (1875). p. 94. 

 3 ' Fauna littoralis Norvegise,' ii. (18.56) p. 95. 



