Report on the zoological collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean ...

156 COLLECTIONS FROM MELANESIA.differ in comparatively unimportant details, of a kind which areprobably adaptive.(jS) There is a marked tendency to the development of a smallnumber of short cirri *.(y) And ten species have lost the cirri altogether.(?) Of the eleven species the formula of no two is exactly thesame.1. Antedon adeonae.Comatula adeonse, /. Milller, Gattung Comatula, p. 15 1.A white line, which extends along the middle of the radials, therest of which is of a reddish purple, is continued for a short thoughvarying distance along each of the arms.There is a curious error in connexion with this species whichdoes not seem to have been noticed. Lamarck described it as" C. radilS pinnatis denis &c. ;" de Blainville, while quoting Lamarck,refers also to his own figures in his ' Atlas ' (pi. xxvi.) ; in thisreference he is followed by J. Miiller and by the editors of thesecond edition of Lamarck. The figures, however, when referred toare seen to be those of a species with twenty arms and with cirrinearer thirty than twenty. It is not perhaps necessary at thisdistance of time to waste time in inquiring what species it is thatde Blainville has there figured.Port Curtis and Port Denison.2. Antedon milberti.Comatula (Alecto) milberti, J. Miiller, p. 19.The rich supply of this species in the present collection % amplyjustifies the doubts which Mr. Carpenter has expressed to me as tothe exactness of the locality (North America) ascribed by Miiller tothis species.Port MoUe ; Port Denison ; Prince of Wales Channel ; TorresStraits.3. Antedon pinniformis.P. H. Carpenter, Notes Lexjd. Mus. iii. p. 180.Dundas Strait, N.W. Australia.* So far as we know at present, c rarely appears i i the formula of an AcHnometra;in words, the cirri are rarely very numerous (more than 30) or very long(with more than 40 joints).t The essay on Comatula, the pagination of which is here quoted from itsseparate copy, was published in 1849 in the Abhandl.' of the Academy of'Berlin for 1847, where it occupies pp. 237-265.\ It is also well represented in a collection of Mr. E. P. Eamsay's, of theAustralian Museum, Sydney.