276 BULLETIN 100, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Paris Museum. Curiously enough, his description of O. stelligera 

 (74, p. 237) is found in the same work and a few pages further on 

 than the few observations added (p. 233) by the learned naturalist 

 to the description of O. ciliaris given by Miiller and Troschel, as a 

 result of the study which he had made at Paris of the original speci- 

 mens. 



Obviously, if the rule of priority were strictly adhered to the name 

 stelligera would have to disappear and the species would have to 

 be called 0. ciliaris. But I think we should retain the name stelli- 

 gera. It refers to well-known forms studied by numerous zoologists, 

 of which there exist in collections numerous specimens to which it is 

 easy to refer. Ophiothrix ciliaris, on the other hand, is only repre- 

 sented by three specimens in a very poor state of preservation and 

 incomplete, and in however slight a degree they may be the object 

 of further examination, they will of necessity be broken up and will 

 be definitely lost. Furthermore, the name 0. ciliaris has been 

 wrongly applied by different authors and in many different ways. 

 Thus Lyman ('82, p. 220) has recorded among the ophiurans of the 

 Challenger expedition O. ciliaris, which was found near Cebu (lat. 

 10° 10' N., long. 123° 55' E.) ; 74-183 meters (95-100 fathoms) . I have 

 had occasion to study some of these Challenger specimens, which were 

 once given me by Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell, and I can state that they 

 agree neither with the types of O. ciliaris nor with O. stelligera, what- 

 ever may be the opinion adopted on the relative value of these two 

 species. In these specimens the distal border of the under arm 

 plates is concave, and this character of itself suffices to exclude 

 all approximation. The club spines of the dorsal surface of the disk 

 are rather stout, somewhat elongated, and unequal, and they are 

 armed with very unequal spinules. These specimens seem to me 

 identical with those which I recorded in 1904 ('04a, p. 103) and 

 which are in the Berlin Museum under the label " O. ciliaris Rothes 

 Meer, No. 3358." These specimens approach forms such as O. ma- 

 renzelleri rather than O. stelligera; I propose to come back to them 

 some day. 



In 1884 Professor Bell recorded O. ciliaris from Port Jackson. New 

 South Wales. Was he referring to O. stelligera, or was his species 

 not rather O. coespitosa? In recording O. ciliaris from Japan, H. L. 

 Clark ('11, p. 257) suggests that this species is perhaps only a form 

 of O. koreana. It is superfluous to state that I can not agree at all 

 with this point of view, for the original specimens of O. ciliaris, as 

 well as the numerous known specimens of O. stelligera, never show 

 the club spines terminated by three long spinules, and the form of 

 their upper arm plates is different from that which we know in O. 

 koreana. On this subject I recall also that Brock considered O. 



