NOTES ON THE RECENT CRINOIDS IN THE 

 BRITISH MUSEUM 



By AUSTIN HOBART CLARK 



ASSISTANT CURATOR, DIVISION OF MARINE INVERTEBRATES, U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 



PREFACE 



During the summer of 1910 I paid a short visit to the British 

 Museum for the purpose of studying the magnificent collection of 

 recent crinoids, more especially the comatulids, preserved in that 

 institution. 



Thanks to the courtesy of Professor F. Jeffrey Bell, who, in the 

 most generous manner and, I fear, at no inconsiderable personal 

 inconvenience, did everything which lay in his power to facilitate 

 and to expedite my work, I was able in the limited time at my dis- 

 posal to examine the entire collection of recent comatulids, taking 

 copious notes on all the specimens upon which published records 

 have been based, and identifying all of the unnamed material, at the 

 same time drawing up diagnoses of such new species as I found. 



It was my wish to leave with Professor Bell my diagnoses of these 

 new species so that he might describe them under his own name, as 

 it seemed somewhat presumptuous for me to publish new and 

 interesting observations based upon the material under the care of 

 Professor Bell ; he, however, with his usual courtesy, insisted that 

 he had no such feeling about the matter, and urged me to publish 

 the descriptions of the new species I found under my name alone as 

 opportunity offered. 



It would take months of study and preparation to do adequate 

 justice to the comatulid collection of the British Museum, and I 

 therefore feel that I owe the Trustees of the institution and Professor 

 Bell an apology for presenting in printed form the results of my 

 necessarily somewhat cursory examination ; but on the other hand 

 I was able to clear up many obscure points and to settle definitely 

 many determinations about which there has always been much doubt, 

 especially in regard to species of which the types are in the con- 

 tinental museums which I visited either just before or just after my 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 61, No. 15 



