﻿REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I9IO 25 1 



however, lose sight of such forms as possess what seems to be 

 adverse testimony and particularly so when we must act not only 

 as an advocate for both sides, but as judge as well. 



It seems also proper to point out here that the tegmen of this 

 cystid is very remarkably crinoidlike. A comparison of text figures 

 34 and 24 will make this manifest. The basal plates of the five arms 

 show notches from which the food grooves ran over the edges of 

 the five orals and passed into the mouth. These basal arm plates 

 may well be considered as radials. The covering plates have been 

 lost, but the grooves show plainly when the tegmen is viewed from 

 the side. If the arrangement of the orals is primitive, it is also 

 rather against the hypothesis that pentamerism arose through the 

 forking of primitive right and left rays. It looks here as if a primi- 

 tive anterior ray had forked to produce rays II and III. 



Ornamentation. The ornamentation shown in text figure 21 may 

 be said to be formed by an elaborate system of strongly raised, 

 interlocking, hexagonal ridges. Each hexagon viewed separately is 

 seen to contain a six-rayed figure whose strong ridges terminate 

 at the angles of the hexagon. Each of the triangular pits so formed 

 contains one smaller and less prominent triangle within it. 



A study of text figure 23, and particularly of figures 26-33, wl ^ 

 show that we are here dealing with an elaborate system of covered 

 epithecal respiratory canals very similar to those already seen in 

 Palaeocrinus striatus and it will be well to compare them 

 with those of that species. Each suture between the larger plates 

 has but three sutural canals. The diameter of the largest, as shown 

 deep in the basin between plates 1 and 2 in figure 29, appears to be 

 but 0.2 mm wide. The distance apart on a suture is from 0.6 

 to 0.7 mm or a distance slightly greater than in P. striatus. 

 These sutural canals open into basins which are not short as in P. 

 striatus but which extend to the ends of the epithecal canals 

 and become shallower with marked regularity. These basins are 

 also widened upward on the suture until they attain a diameter about 

 twice as great as the canal leading into them. The long canallike 

 character shown by these epithecal structures in Palaeocrinus 

 striatus is completely masked. Epithecal basins would here be 

 the more appropriate term. When these basins are covered, the 

 ridges of the larger are 0.45 mm wide and appear apparently 

 flat topped. At least they appear so in the cleaned surface of one of 

 Syntype A as shown under a gum dammar mounting and reproduced 

 in figure 32. The oval basin of this species is partly shown in this 



