NO. 7 SEA-LILIES AND FEATHER-STARS CLARK I9 



ideal places. A few species have been found by shore collectors in 

 New Caledonia, Lord Howe Island, Fiji, Samoa, the Marshall, Gil- 

 bert (Kingsmill), Pelew, Caroline, Society and Hawaiian Islands, 

 but throughout Oceania they appear to be relatively rare. None are 

 known from the Japanese coasts north of Tokyo Bay, from the Asiatic 

 coasts north of Fokien, from the northern or eastern shores of the 

 Pacific, or from New Zealand. 



In the Atlantic basin littoral crinoids occur from Scandinavia and 

 Great Britain to the Gulf of Guinea, including the Mediterranean 

 area (but not the Black Sea) and the islands of the European and 

 African coasts, and in the region of Cape Town, and in the west from 

 the Bahamas and Florida to southern Brazil ; but in the west they 

 are extraordinarily rare, there being, except in the case of Tropio- 

 metra, but six records, one from the Bahamas (Nemaster) , one from 

 the Tortugas, Florida (Nemaster), one from St. Thomas (Antedon), 

 one from Dominica (Nemaster) and two from Brazil (Nemaster 

 and Antedon). 



Of all the comatulids the preeminently littoral genus is Tropiometra, 

 and wherever this genus occurs, from South Africa to Australia, 

 Oceania and southern Japan, and from the southern Caribbean to 

 south Brazil and St. Helena, it is commonly found along the shores, 

 often in great abundance. In the western Atlantic, from Tobago, 

 Trinidad and Venezuela to southern Brazil, it is the only really 

 common littoral form. 



A close second to Tropiometra is found in the genus Antedon, 

 ranging from Scandinavia and Great Britain to the Gulf of Guinea, 

 including the offshore islands and the entire Mediterranean basin, 

 and also found from St. Thomas to Brazil, all the species of which 

 occur along the shores, where they are often locally abundant. Only 

 two specimens of the American species are known, one from shore 

 collections at Rio de Janeiro, the other from shore collections at 

 St. Thomas. 



The species which have actually been captured along the shore 

 number no less than 152, representing 38 genera and 12 families and 

 subfamilies, while 93 more undoubtedly occur there, making a grand 

 total of 245 shore-living types already known. Of these 227 are 

 from the Indo-Pacific region (including two from South Africa), 

 eight are from the region between the Bahamas and Florida and 

 Brazil, six are from the northeastern Atlantic north of the Gulf of 

 Guinea, and four are from southern Australia. 



The favorite localities for shore-living comatulids are more or less 

 shaded situations, holes and crevices in reefs, beneath stones, in half- 



