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irregularly among the larger ones; Polyps: straw yellow, large, 3 mm. high, 2 mm. oral diameter 
(variable), all round the corallum, quite irregularly distributed; two lateral tentacles are a 
little longer. 
Cirripathes ? paucispina Brook. Colony: scarcely tapering, lightbrown, with the appearance 
of mica; Spines: short, rather far apart, 4 longitudinal rows (in a steep spiral), conical, blunt 
apex which is rough; at right angles with the axis or slightly distally inclined; Polyps: unknown. 
Cirripathes ? flagellum Brook. Colony: slightly curved, non-spiral, habitus like C.anguina 
and propinqua\ Spines: long ones, which are conical, acute, with papillose apex, arranged in 
incomplete spirals, and small ones, which are slender, in irregular rows between the larger 
ones, half as long as the longer spines; Polyps: unknown. 
Cirripathes ? diversa Brook. Colony: the same habitus as C. spiralis ; Spines: long ones, 
which are blunt and arranged in 12 longitudinal rows, wound in dextrorsal spirals round the 
axis, and short ones, which are numerous, triangular, short and acute; Polyps: unknown. 
None of these species is collected by the Challenger itself; the specimens, described by 
Brook, came from the collections in the British Museum. Cirripathes propinqua was the only 
species, the polyps of which were preserved in spirits and could be searched by Brook. Forster- 
Cooper makes mention of specimens of Cirr. ? diver sa Br. and Cirr. anguina Dana, while these 
specimens and those of Cirr. gardineri came from the material collected by Gardiner in the Maid, 
and Lacc.-Archip. At following expeditions Cirripathes- species were very rarely collected; only 
Thomson and Simpson described a species which, although the polyps are absent, is reckoned 
by them to Cirripathes. This specimen, described as Cirr.} sp. n.? is entirely like Stichopathes 
liitkeni Brook in the shape of the colony and the spines. Forster-Cooper’s new species Cirr. 
gardineri is only incompletely described. So in all there are 4 undoubted species and 4 
dubious ones. But the former are not all of them unassailable. Brook himself granted that 
these species are very much like each other; after having put aside the specimens with a 
spiral stem as Cirripathes spiralis (Linn.) Blainv., he divided the other specimens, basing his 
opinion on the characters of the spines and the diameter of the axis, in Cirr. anguina Dana 
and Cirr. propinqua Brook (only one single specimen!). However the material of the 
Stichopathes- species, described by me, has shown the very great variability of one and the same 
species, especially in regard to the shape of the colony and the characters of the spines, often 
to such a degree as to make it very dubious if these characters may be used as specific 
characters of first order. Not only the shape of the spines and their dimensions are so very 
variable, but also the number of longitudinal rows, the spirals which they form, the unequal 
length on opposite sides of the axis, etc., even with one and the same specimen. — I he only 
specimen of Cirr. propinqua Br. differs from Cirr. anguina Dana in the spines, which are 
shorter, more numerous, unequal on opposite sides of the axis, and arranged in irregular 
longitudinal rows; but these are differences, which may be found within the range of the 
variability of Cirr. anguina Dana, while besides the nodes in the axis, which are observed 
in Cirr. anguina Dana, and which are so-called absent in Cirr. propinqua Br., certainly are 
present in the latter species, according to Dana. So I am much inclined to unite both species. — 
Besides it is an open question whether the spiral shape of the colony is a settling argument to 
