712 



66H " THETIS " SCIENTIFIC RESULTS. 



dans la Nouvelle-Hollande; I'auteur propose de lui donner le nom 

 d' Encrinus australis. Elle n'a pas de colonne vert6brale, niais 

 le corps de I'animal a environ un cinquieme de pouce de long, et 

 est termine dans cette diiection par un base circulaire. A I'extre- 

 mite oppose dn corps sont attaches cinq appendices clavieulaires, 

 etc. M. Pleydell a essaye souvent de recueillir avec beaucoup 

 de soin des echantillons complets de cet animal pour les envoyer 

 en Europe ; mais, apres sa mort, les articulations ne tardent pas 

 a s'en disjoindre et a tomber en pieces. La decouverte de M. 

 Pleydell est d'autant plus interessant que jusqu' a present on n'a 

 encore rencontre que tres rarement des echantillons un peu 

 complets d'Encrines vivants, et encore le nombre des espfeces en 

 est-il ties limite. On sait d'autre part combien sont nombreux 

 ces animaux a I'etat fossile dans presque toute la serie des 

 terrains stratifies, jusque peut-etre dans les terrains tertiare, si 

 Foil ajoute foi aux dernieres d^couvertes faites a ce sujet dans 

 les terrains subapeunins." 



This organism could not have been a Crinoid ; what it was has 

 remained, so far as literature is concerned, a mystery. 



In 1846 Miiller described two species which had been brought 

 from King George Sound in South-western Australia by MM. 

 Quoy and G-aimard. These were Gomatula macronema and C. 

 trichoptera, which have since proved to be the most characteristic 

 of all the Australian species, and, with the addition of another 

 related to the first, the only ones confined to the more southern 

 part of the Continent. 



Sir Richard Owen in 1862 described, but did not name, an 

 "encrinite" which was dredged by Mr. J. S. Poore in eight 

 fathoms in King George Sound ; it was about six inches long, 

 with arms one and one-half inches long, and was coloured a 

 beautiful rose or pink, fading to white. Dr. P. H. Carpenter 

 suggested that it was possibly a pentacrinoid larva, though of 

 most unusual size. It seems most probable, however, that this 

 was really a small XJmbellularian ; one of KoUiker's figures of the 

 young of Umhellularia carpenteri, taken by the " Challenger" in 

 the seas south-west of Australia, shows an animal sufficiently 

 like a Crinoid to deceive even a fairly skilled zoologist, and of 

 the size described by Owen. The colour as given is certainly 

 suggestive of an XJmbellularian, and, moreover, does not occur in 

 any of the small stalked Criuoids, nor in any pentacrinoid larvae. 



Six years later Professor Sven Loven announced the discovery of 

 a recent Cystidean— a group previously supposed to be exclusively 

 Palaeozoic — at Cape York ; but this was soon shown to be merely 

 the detached visceral mass of some Comatulid having a strongly 

 plated perisome, and later it was referred by P. H. Carpenter to 

 Zyyometra unuUiradiata which is common in that region. 



