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Show 392 PROF. F. JEFFREY BELL ON THE [May 1, 1. On the Echinoderms collected during the Voyage of H.M.S. ' Penguin' and by H.M.S. ' Egeria/ when surveying Macclesfield Bank. By F. JEFFREY BELL, M.A., Sec. R.M.S. [Received March 5, 1894.] (Plates XXIIL-XXVII.) Mr. P. W. Bassett-Smith, Surgeon B.N., was, fortunately for marine zoology, appointed after her cruise had begun to H.M.S. ' Penguin,' Capt. W . U. Moore, who was under instructions to survey parts of North-west Australia and the Macclesfield Bank. Mr. Bassett-Smith had already had experience not only in collecting in the Eastern Seas, but of the sympathy his captain had in his work, while on this cruise he had the further advantage of the co-operation of the chief engineer, Mr. J. J. Walker, who, when Mr. Bassett-Smith joined the ship, bad already commenced to make his extensive collection of Insects-a collection so extensive that he was able to give over to the Museum no less than 12,000 specimens. The Trustees of the British Museum have already expressed 1 their appreciation of the services rendered by Messrs. Bassett- Smith and J. J. Walker while on the ' Penguin,' and it now only remains for the zoologist to do his work of description and cataloguing. After the 'Penguin'was paid off Mr. Bassett-Smith had offered him the opportunity of paying on board H.M.S. ' Egeria,' Commander A. M . Field, yet another visit to Macclesfield Bank; and it was well he did so, for it was on this occasion that he obtained the most interesting and valuable part of his collection of Echinoderms. H e secured, for example, a specimen of a new species of Eudiocrinus allied to E. inclivisus, the type of which is now in the private collection of Mr. W . Percy Sladen ; Ophiopteron elegans, known hitherto only in the Brock collection, was obtained in several dredgings ; and Ophiocrene cenigma is a type of Ophiuroid which is perfectly new. Interesting and valuable as this collection of Echinoderms is, it has offered peculiar difficulties in working out. I have never before had passing through m y hands a collection containing so large a proportion of young specimens, or, in other words, forms in which the specific characters stated in the diagnoses are not distinctly marked2. In some cases the series has been sufficiently loug and gradual to enable me to assign quite young examples to what I think is their correct species, but I have had to query a larger proportion of m y determinations than I can allow to pass without this word of explanation, and a number of specimens have been merely referred to their genera. 1 [Annual] Return [Parliamentary] British Museum, 1893, p. 83. 2 I find that the essential part of these remarks is true also of the Crustacea.- 14th June, 1894. |
