REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I914 165 



but it is forced through them as a strongly flowing current having 

 a fixed direction and due to the ciliary activity of the brachioles. 

 These flowing hydrospires probably function in reproduction and 

 in Blastoidocrinus they carry away all egesta from the alimentary 

 canal. In Asteroblastus (probably) and in the Eublastoidea, this 

 flow is upward (orad) and parallel with two of the deltoid margins. 

 This type may be known as anaspires. In the Parablastoidea (N. Y. 

 State Museum Bulletin 107, page 119) the hydrospire structure is 

 of a fundamentally different character and the flow is downwards 

 (aborad) and across the large interradial plate commonly called the 

 deltoid, but probably not a true deltoid in its origin. This distinct 

 type as shown in Blastoidocrinus may be known as cataspires. 



The term pectinirhomb might still be used for all epithecal 

 rhombs, due to forking and partial covering of papulae as in 

 Palaeocystis and Palaeocrinus, but in no case should it be used to 

 denote any form of true hydrospires as here limited. The term 

 pore-rhomb could also be used if applied strictly to covered craspedo- 

 spires of the Caryocrinus type. 



The author has suggested the new terms in the belief that their 

 use will help rather than hinder the development of paleobiology. 

 They emphasize some very marked differences in the ontogeny of 

 respiratory structures and of themselves arouse a suspicion that 

 neither the Protoblastoidea nor the Rhombifera of Lancaster's "A 

 Treatise on Zoology," part 3, are natural orders. In the latter 

 group, for instance, we find forms with epispires of the Palaeocystis 

 and Palaeocrinus type together with forms having the fundamentally 

 different endospires of the Glyptocystis type, and this largely because 

 normal extension of the respiratory tracts led both to occupy 

 rhombic areas. 



In suggesting this terminology the writer has not been so radical 

 as he would like to be. There seems to be no valid reason why the 

 path of young students should not be made easier by using a name 

 like the Greek pneumon for a final term and let our compounds ex- 

 press not only some characteristic of structure or position but the 

 function as well. We already use common terms for alimentary 

 structures although dealing with different phyla of the animal 

 kingdom. Why obscure or banish the thought of function by the 

 use of such terms as pore-rhombs or pectinirhombs? A portion of 

 the table given in New York State Museum Bulletin 149, page 198, 

 is here given to show proper place of terms proposed. 



