386 Mr. P. H. Carpenter. Preliminary Report upon [Mar. 6, 



the only species which I have been able to identify with any certainty 

 are : — 



Antedon Eschriclitii. Actinometra multiradiata. 



„ macrocnema. „ fiinbriata. 



„ Brasiliensis (Liit~k.). „ Novce Guineas. 



,, trichoptera. 



Miiller's specific diagnoses are, as is well known, very incomplete ; 

 and it is possible that a personal examination of his original specimens 

 will enable me to identify more of his species than I can at present. I 

 am inclined to think that besides the above-mentioned species, the 

 " Challenger " collection also includes the following : — 



Act. purpurea. Act. WaliTberghii. 



Act. rotatoria. ' Act. stellata (Luth.). 



The comparative distribution of these two genera is very striking. 

 Relatively speaking, Actinometra is extremely limited in its range, both 

 geographical and bathy metrical. It is almost exclusively a tropical 

 genus, its northern limit being about 30° N. lat. and its southern 

 40 : S. lat. Isolated species are known from the Cape of Good Hope, 

 Natal, South Australia, and Port Jackson, but its chief home is 

 Oceania, especially the Philippines and Moluccas, from which latter 

 locality the "Challenger" brought home 11 species of Actinometra, 

 but not a single Antedon. 14 species were found at Zamboanga, in 

 the Philippines, but no Antedon ; while at the Zebu Reefs, in another 

 part of this group, two Antedons were obtained, but no Actinometra; 

 and at Station 192, 11 Antedons, but no Actinometra, just the reverse 

 of what was found at Banda, in the Moluccas. A. few Actinometra 

 species are also known from the west coasts of the Atlantic, as South 

 Carolina, the West Indies, Bahia, and St. Paul's Rocks. 



The bathymetrical range of Actinometra is likewise very narrow. 

 Nearly all the "Challenger" species are from depths less than 20 

 fathoms, while only three come from a greater depth than 100 

 fathoms. These were all obtained at Station 174, where the depths 

 of different hauls were 210, 255, and 610 fathoms. I have no informa- 

 tion as to which of these hauls yielded the three species in question. 

 The individual species of Actinometra, like the genus itself, are very 

 local in their distribution. Act. Solaris seems to have a fairly wide 

 range in the Malay Archipelago and in Oceania, though oddly enough 

 it does not occur in the " Challenger " collection. Each of the forty- 

 eight species of this collection has its own locality. In no case have I 

 been able to refer specimens from different localities to the same 

 species, except that duplicates of the same species were found at two 

 stations in Torres Straits (186, 187), very close to each other. 



With Antedon, however, the case is different. Not only do nearly 

 all the deep-sea ComatuloB belong to this genus, but some species of it 



