710 



^44- " THETIS " SCIENTIFIC HIiSULTS. 



The gregarious habits of cerfc-iin forms and the solitary habits 

 of otliers have been ex|)hiined theoietically but never studied in 

 the field, nor is anything known about tlieir adolescent autotomy 

 or their relations to liglit, salinity, temperature, or mechanical 

 disturbances, such as wave motion. The pliysiological pi'ocesses, 

 such as the digestive action, the breaking apart of the sy/ygies, 

 and the signihcance of the water vascular system are as yet 

 practically unstudied, as are the curious pigments, antedonin and 

 others, and their varied and beautiful manifestations under 

 different conditions. 



In short, though the study of no group of animals gives pro- 

 mise of such important results, especially from a palseontological 

 standpoint, there is no group of animals about which we know 

 so little, and it is greatly to be hoped that the near future will 

 see an awakening of interest which will place our knowledge of 

 the recent Crinoids on a par with our knowledge of other recent 

 animals, as their great importance, particularly in linking the 

 present with the past, deserves. 



History of the Subject. 



The history of the study of the Crinoidea inhabiting the coasts 

 of Australia is, considering the great importance of the region, 

 surprisingly short. The literature dealing with the subject is 

 all included in less than forty papers contributed l>y only fourteen 

 authors; most of these papers mention Australian species only 

 incidentally, while a few aie local lists, based on small collections 

 from single localities or from limited areas ; no comprehensive 

 work has yet appeared. Such a state of affairs necessitates a 

 very considerable amount of labour for anyone who v/ishes to 

 acquire a general idea of the subject, for all these papers must be 

 read and a general idea formed by piecing together the more or 

 less fragmentary bits of information gleaned from each. 



Lamarck was the first author to mention any Australian 

 Orinoid, over one hundred years after the first announcement of 

 their occurrence in China had been made. In 1816 he described 

 four new species, which had been obtained in Australia by Peron 

 and Le Sueur on their memorable voyage in 1803, under the 

 names of Comatula adeonte, C. fimbrlata, C. Solaris, and C. 

 rotalaria. The second of these is the same form which was 

 described from China by Petiver, in 1711, a.s Stella chinensis perle- 

 Cfens, a reference cited by Linnaeus under his Asterias pectinata, and 

 is also identical with the species represented by the type 

 specimen of Linnaeus' second species, Asterias multiradiata, 

 which had come from the Indian Ocean. At the same time 

 Lamarck described his Comatula hrachiokita, for which the habitat 

 "Atlantic Ocean " was given, though it has since been found to 

 be an Australian species. 



