COMATULA. 19 



Comatula, Lamarck. 



Cup simple, of a single piece, bearing five bifurcating pinnated arms above, and a 

 number of chelate jointed filaments attached to its under surface, except in the centre, 

 where there is a disk to which, in its early stage, the extremity of a column was 

 attached. 



Although the remains of Comatula found in the Crag are exceedingly fragmentary, 

 and consist only of minute and much injured cups, they are sufficiently well marked to 

 enable us to pronounce with certainty on their affinities, and also to speak with confidence 

 as to their distinctness from any described forms. They have, curiously enough, relations 

 more near to Indo-Pacific types than to any found now in the Atlantic and its arms. 



At the present time, two species of this genus inhabit the British Seas. 



1. Comatula Woodwardi. Plate I, fig. 20. 



Three little cups, each of which measures rather less than three millimetres across by 

 about one in height, contained in the collection of Mr. Searles Wood, and discovered by that 

 naturalist in the Coralline Crag of Sutton, have belonged to a species of Comatula. 



They are deeply and widely excavated above, the breadth of the excavation occupying 

 more than a third of the total width, so as to give a narrow aspect to the superior border 

 of the cup. This margin is broken up by rather broad radiating furrows. The under 

 surface is convex ; centrally, it is smooth or minutely punctated, and plane ; at the sides, 

 it is sloping, swollen, and pitted by two closely set circles of impressed and rather large 

 sockets for filaments, ten in each circle. 



2. Comatula Brownii. Plate I, fig. 19. 



1 have given this name, in honour of Mr. John Brown, of Stanway, to the cup of 

 a very distinct Crinoid from the Coralline Crag, of which two specimens have been com- 

 municated from Sutton by Mr. Searles Wood. 



The largest measures two twelfths of an inch in diameter by two millemetres in height. 

 The excavation in the centre of the cup, superiorly, is rather more than a millemetre in 

 diameter, and one half the breadth of the distance between it and the flattened marginal 

 portion. The under-side exhibits but slight traces of the central disk, the alternating 

 circles of tentacular scars occupy the remainder of its slightly convex surface. 



