4 Echin. 
XIV. ECHINODERMA. 
their first volumes. The totals for the six previous years now stand at: 
1896, 215 ; 1897, 217 ; 1898, 227 ; 1899, 260 ; 1900, 306 : 1901, 292. The 
sudden drop to 251 for 1902 is only apparent, since there are a larsre 
number of publications which the Recorder has preferred to postpone till 
some future year, rather than to include with only such imperfect informa¬ 
tion as is at present at his command. If any author feels aggrieved that 
his work has not been noticed he has only to send a cop}’, with full biblio¬ 
graphic details , when prompt attention will be paid to it. Repaged 
reprints are always laid aside until the volume from which they have been 
taken can be referred to. This often involves a delay of several years. As 
illustrating the extraordinary difficulty of seeing papers, even when by 
writers of repute, and when published under Government auspices in the 
Proceedings of the chief scientific society of a State, reference may be 
made to Keyes (151), a paper that might have been of much service to 
European workers. The richness of our London libraries is remarkable ; 
but the gaps in their collections are more remarkable still. Some people 
seem to produce books merely to sit on them. For proof of this one need 
only read the remarks, under Addenda et Corrigenda, on an alleged 
work by Munier-Chalmas, or those that have appeared in previous 
Records on the work of Pomel. This annual protest is the only opportu¬ 
nity one has of venting the indignation accumulated during twelve months 
of drudgery. It does not seem to have much effect, but if it only produces 
in his readers one hundredth part of the weariness and disgust the 
Recorder feels himself, then it is not without value. 
II. Biology. Philosophers rarely condescend to Crinoids, and it is 
therefore refreshing to find Jaekel (134) drawing on that class for examples 
of the methods of phylogenesis ; his terminology for the methods he 
imagines to have been followed is more novel than the conceptions them¬ 
selves ; in his concrete illustrations, however, he is not merely novel but 
revolutionary : to regard the Calceocrinidae as the starting-point of the 
Heterocrinidae , or the Cystidea as derived from various abnormal larvae of 
Cladocrinoidea [Crinoidea camerata\ or Uintacrinus and Marsupites as 
reversions from comatulids, is paralleled by little else than Jaekel’s own 
hypothesis of the origin of fish from land animals. The paper is stimulating 
in the highest degree. 
K. C. Schneider (255) has produced a very big book, which contains 
useful summaries of the minute anatomy of a starfish, a crinoid, and a 
holothurian ; the value of his hypotheses as to the origin and relations of 
the Echinoderm classes may be estimated from such remarks as these : 
“Die Crinoiden sind die phylogenetisch altesten Formen”, “eine Reihe 
von Merkmalen sich von den Verhaltnissen der Alcyonarier ableiten 
lassen ” ; “ bei den uebrigen Echinodermen liegt der Mund dauernd in 
Benachbarung des apicalen Poles ” : obviously the author has not been 
prejudiced by the opinions of previous writers on Echinoderms. Master- 
man’s account of the embryonic and larval stages of Cribrella (195) makes 
known a new type of irregular segmentation, resulting in a morula, from 
which the interior cells migrate outwards, tending to produce a blastula, 
when gastrulation intervenes. In the history of the coelom, Masterman 
recognises, in addition to the usual features, a central coelom developed 
from the posterior wall of the anterior coelom, and a fusion of the right 
and left posterior coeloms ; he discusses the homologies of these with 
those recognised in other classes and with the body-cavities of the adult; 
some light is thus thrown on Grave’s account of Ophiuran development. 
Except for the slight modification entailed on the homology of the posterior 
coeloms, Masterman’s theory agrees, in its main lines, with the evolution 
of Dipleurula , Crinoid, and Asteroid maintained in Bather (14a). The 
article last mentioned, written of course in 1900, discusses the trend of 
Echinoderm morphology during the last quarter of the century, criticising 
