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THE RECENT CRINOIDS OF AUSTRALIA CLAKK. fifif) 



In 1877 Pfofesaor E. P. Wright wrote a paper on a new genus 

 and species of sponge, Kallispongia archeri, from Australia, which 

 Ridley, then recorder for the " Zoological Record," at once sus- 

 pected to be the stalked larva of some Coraatulid. Wright figures 

 two species which are probably the larv£e of Compsometra loveni 

 and Ptilometra mulleri ; he distinguishes the latter as a vaiiety. 



Dr. P. H. Carpenter two years later published his able mono- 

 graph on the genus Actinometra, and the preliminary report on 

 the Comatulidee collected by the " Challenger " Expedition. The 

 former contained nothing new in regard to Australian forms, 

 although for the most part based upon a species which is common 

 on the northern coast ; the latter will be considered in connection 

 with his completed monograph. 



In 1881 he discussed a few Australian species, but without 

 bringing forward any new facts in regard to the fauna of the 

 region. At the same time he described Antedon pin^iiformis and 

 A. perspinosa from New Guinea, both species which have more 

 recently been reported from Queensland. During the following 

 year he gave a short account of a specimen at Copenhagen which 

 was the basis of Liitkeii's MS. name A^itedon australis. Thin 

 magnificent example of Craspedometra acuticirra had been taken 

 at Sydney, and it remains to-day the only specimen of the species 

 from any locality south of the Audamans and Singapore. In 

 the same paj)er he described Actinometra rohusta (Liitken MS.) 

 and Actinometra meyeri, both from Australia. The former was- 

 soon recognised as the same as the Lamarckian Gomatida Solaris, 

 while the latter he later erroneously placed in the synonymy 

 of Miiller's Actinometra pa7-vicirra. 



In the year 1882 Professor F. Jeffrey Bell proposed a scheme 

 for the graphic representation of the various species of Comatulids 

 by means of formulae, and published a list giving most of the 

 described forms with their appropriate formulfe. In this list he 

 included certain MS. names of his own, in anticipation of the 

 "Alert " Report, among them Antedooi, loveni and Antedon insignis^ 

 which he changed two years later to Antedon pujyiil a and Antedon 

 loveni for no apparent reason, greatly to the confusion of nomen- 

 clature. In addition he described as new Actinometra annxdata, 

 from Cape York, which was wrongly considered by Carpenter as 

 the same as Miiller's Alecto parvicirra. 



The "Report upon the Zoological Collections made in 

 the Jndo-Pacific Ocean during the Cruise of H.M.S. 'Alert' 

 in the years 1881-2," jjublished in 1884, is the first paper of any 

 length dealing mainly with Australian species. It was written 

 by Professor F. Jeffrey Bell, but Carpenter assisted in many of 

 the identifications. 'J'wenty-eight species from Australian water* 



