Glyptocrinus Redefined and Restricted, ete. 233 
number, in the different species examined, as the primary radials, 
then a step from the secondary to the tertiaries might be as important 
-as from the primaries to the secondaries, and the presence of tertiaries 
might well be regarded ag of generic importance instead of specific. 
In other families this may be the case, and hence, a character of generic 
importance in one association of crinoids may not be in another. Ido 
not, however, say that this is so, but others have asserted it as a fact, 
and I am not prepared to disprove it. 
I have been unable to found generic divisions upon the interradial 
or azygous plates. These do not reach the base or stable part of the 
body. In their upward extension they graduate into the plates of the 
vault, where the number differ, in different specimens in the same 
species. While the number is uniform in the interradial areas proper, 
‘in each species, yet no two species will agree in the number and char-— 
acter of these plates; hence, they are of specific importance, or one 
grade less than generic. 
CoMPSOORINUS, n. gen. 
[Ety. kompsos, elegant; krinon, a lily.] 
Column square or subquadrate. Basals four. - Primary radials three 
by five ; secondary radials two or more by ten ; tertiary radials more 
or less numerous. One interradial in the first series, two in the 
second, and above this, numerous. Intersecondary and intertertiary 
plates, numerous. Surface of the plates sculptured. Type Compso- 
crinus harrisi, described by the author in 1881, under the name of 
Glyptocrinus harrisi, in Jour. Cin, Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. iv., p. 74. 
This genus agrees with Xenocrinus, in the general character of the 
column and number of basals, but above this it seems to be much_like 
Glyptocrinus. At first view one would suggest that the type of this 
genus bears about the same resemblance to the type of Xenocrinus 
that Glyptocrinus decadactylus bears to G. baer?, but sucb is not the 
case. The two latter agree in the radial structure as high as the 
second secondary radials, and in the general character and structure of 
the vault, so far as ascertained; but Xenocrinus is possessed of an ex- 
traordinary azygous side, and a prolonged proboscis, while this genus 
has no such disproportion 1n its sides, and from what we know, appears 
to have had a vault without a proboscis. The characters will be more 
fully stated in the description of the species. 
