10 
Dr. P. H. Carpenter on the 
will be evident from the following passage * * * § : — u Carpenter 
and Wachsmuth call the c subradials ’ the ( basals ’ in all 
cases where they occur, and the lower plates c under-basals ; ’ 
but where there are no c subradials ’ they follow the well- 
established nomenclature in calling the first circle of plates 
1 basals.’ ” These very plates, however, are recognized by 
other palaeontologists as representing the subradials, which 
Miller says are not found in monocyclic Crinoids. It is 
unfortunate that a work which is likely to be so generally 
used by students and collectors should in this respect be 
some years behind the times. The only American writers 
on Crinoids besides Miller f who have not yet publicly 
adopted the rational nomenclature are Hall, Grant, Ulrich, 
White, and Whitfield ; but I am not aware that any one of 
them has written on dicyclic Crinoids since 1882, so that 
they have had no need to make a decision. One would have 
thought that the conversion in succession of Messrs. Wetherby, 
Worthen, and Ringueberg would have led Miller to reconsider 
his position, which is at present a somewhat isolated one, as 
is shown in the accompanying table (pp. 8 and 9) ; and he can- 
not therefore any longer claim to be using u the established 
or prevaling methods of description” as he did in 1883. 
I have endeavoured to show that the German palseontolo- 
gists do not always employ the term basals when they might 
advantageously do so. Fewkes, on the other hand, has used 
it too freely. Referring to certain plates which appear on 
the abactinal hemisome of the young Amphiura , he says that 
they u form in the interradii, and may therefore be called 
interradials or basals ; ” \ and he continues : — u The first set 
of interradial plates may be known as the abaxial basals or 
first interradials.” In the next line these are called u abaxial 
interradials,” and a little further on (p. 130) he mentions a 
new plate as u beginning to form between an abaxial and an 
adaxial interradial.” Replying to my criticisms on the loose- 
ness of his terminology § and the way in which he has con- 
fused terms which previous writers on Crinoid morphology 
* i North American Geology and Palaeontology/ Cincinnati, 1889, 
p. 212. 
f Since the above was written Messrs. Miller and Gurley have pub- 
lished descriptions of some new Crinoids, in which the term subradials is 
still employed — “ Description of some new Genera and Species of Echino- 
dermata from the Coal measures and Subcarboniferous rocks of Indiana, 
Missouri, and Iowa,” Journ. Cincinn. See. Nat. Hist. 1890, vol. xiii. p. 3. 
I “On the Development of the Calcareous Plates of Amphiura /’ Bull. 
Mus. Conip. Zool. 1887, vol. xiii. p. 128. 
§ “ On the Development of the Apical Plates in Amphiura squamata ,” 
Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci. 1887, vol. xxviii. p. 313. 
