
BARBADOS-ANTIGUA EXPEDITION 87 
were found, mostly from shallow water. They appeared to be 
A. costosum. 
Crinoidea——Much to our disappointment only one stalked 
erinoid was secured, and this was a Rhizocrinus from Station 4, 
depth 110 fathoms. It had a very slender stalk, a small head 
and no cirri. Pentacrinus is found in the region, as I saw a 
fine specimen in a local collection which had been sent to the 
British Museum and identified as P. decorus. 
But the lack of stalked forms was largely made up for by 
many beautiful sessile comatulids. These will be reported on 
by Mr. Frank Springer of the United States National Museum. 
Not being acquainted with this group, the present writer will 
have to satisfy himself with a mention of some of the wonderful 
colorings displayed by these graceful but fragile forms. Un- 
fortunately, these vivid colors are exceedingly evanescent, dis- 
appearing after but a few minutes of immersion in alcohol. 
Some specimens must have been as much as 16 inches in spread, 
and when alive and uninjured presented a truly magnificent 
spectacle. As a whole, they seemed much more brilliant than 
the forms encountered on the ‘‘Pentacrinus ground’’ off Ha- 
vana and on the Pourtalés plateau by the Bahama expedition. Few 
marine animals are harder to secure intact than these, as the 
very fragile arms are almost sure to be broken in dredging, 
either with the dredge or tangles. We secured a number of 
perfect specimens by taking them from the crannies in large 
coral rocks brought up from time to time in the dredge. Here 
they had been protected and could be taken out without injury ; 
but their colors, alas, soon vanished in preservatives. This 
habit of living in excavations in rocks has not, so far as I am 
aware, been mentioned by previous writers; but it was quite the 
usual thing off Barbados. We often found these crinoids far 
in the interior of masses of old coral rock brought up in the 
dredge, and we were careful to break such rock very thoroughly, 
as fine comatule were often found within a cavity in the very 
heart of such masses. 
It is hard to imagine the use of these brilliant colors in a hab- 
itat such as this. Of course the rocks themselves were often 
brilliantly colored by the assemblage of corallines, sponges and 
gorgonians with which they were overgrown. The predom- 
