KONGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 25. N:0 2. .") 



Brevitv ma v be tolerated for its supposecl virtues ; but one can hardly pass inaecur- 

 acy without censure. The text of the Iconographia is as a rule merely insumeicnt; but 

 the illustrations are often misleading. When figures are very beautiful and perfect in 

 appearance, one is rarely surprised to hear that they have been largely restored. The 

 imaginative qualities of Prof. Angelins artists would have wori them fame in any other 

 department of art than that of scientific draughtmanship. But in this case beauty has 

 unfortunately not proved compatible with use. As warrant for these remarks I may refer 

 to the paper on Crotalocrinus by Messrs Wachsmuth and Springer. *) To be just, however, 

 the blarae should fall not so much on the artists as on the author who guided their pen- 

 cils with excess of zeal. 



Worse than mere restoration, which after all may occasionally chance to be correct, 

 is the habit too often indulged in by our author, of constructing figures from many dif- 

 ferent specimens. This is a method of representation which has doubtless much value in 

 certain lines of scientiiic enquiry. A diagram, for instance, is always understood to give 

 the authors idea of a structure or of a fäet; and the more instances it is generalised 

 from, the closer will it approach ideal truth. Again, it is conceivablc that the method 

 of composite portraiture, as developed by Mr Francis Galton and others, might be era- 

 ployed with ad vantage to discover a type or standard from which degrees of variation 

 within the limits of a species might be measured in positive or negative terms. But in 

 the systematic description of a species, the accurate rendering of the individual type-spec- 

 imens must be held to be the prime necessity. Endless labour is entailed on subsequent 

 observers by such a figure as Tab. XXIX, hg. 74, which is composed of the crown of 

 one specimen and the stem of another; while confusion is still worse confounded by mon- 

 strosities like Tab. XXVII, tig. 1 ; for there, not content with the conglomeration of three 

 specimens in a cement of fiction, our author has artfully combined individuals belonging 

 to two distinct species. Well may the systematist despair. 



And even for the morphologist there is no hope. The base of Pisocrinus is drawn 

 with absolute incorrectness, while the anal tube, clear enough in the specimens of that 

 genus, is barely hinted at in the drawings. A large part of the curious struetures be- 

 longing to Crotalocrinus, as shown in Tab. VII, lig. la, are imaginarv, and in the actual 

 specimen have a different arrangement. The difticulties connected with Angelin's figures 

 of Myelodactylus have hitherto proved insuperable, and it has naturally never been sus- 

 pected that one of the arms in Tab. X, tig. 24 is really an anal tube. 



But it is useless and ungrateful to multiply instances: enough to show that there 

 really was a need for eareful revision, and for the re-drawing of many specimens. For 

 the rest, the ensuing paper will, I trust, be its own justification. 



And here, considering the length of the paper, it may not be out of place to direct 

 the attention of those Avho have not the Avish to plod through deserts of detail, to such 

 j)oints of general interest as are here brought forward for the first tinie, and to give a 

 short summary of the forms described. 



The section of the paper now presented to the Academy deals only with the Cri- 

 noidea Inadunata. These are taken first since they may be very plausibly regarded 



') I'roc. Ac. N;it. Se. Philadelphia, vol. for 1888, p. 364. 



