General Appearance.—As previously remarked, owing to the fulness of the generic description, minute details on structure, excepting those characteristic of the present species, need not here be given. The crown-like shape of the shell is well expressed by its name of Diadema, but the crown tends to pass into a cylinder. The radii are extremely broad. The orifice is large, and neatly hexagonal: when the operculum is removed the whole inside of the cup-formed shell can be seen at once, for the flat membranous basis is much smaller than the orifice. The under side of the shell is deeply concave. The outside of each compartment is formed by broad, rounded, and somewhat prominent, rarely divided, ribs (i. e. the transverse ends of the folded walls); these ribs are closely united together by finely serrated lines of junction (Pl. 16, fig. 1, f). Their surfaces outside are delicately striated longitudinally, and plainly crossed (more plainly than in the foregoing and the next species) by irregular, transverse ridges, especially in the lower part of the shell. The largest specimen which I have seen was two and a half inches in diameter and two in height.

Scuta.—These are placed close together at the rostral end of the orifice, and are imbedded in the brownish, tough, longitudinally plicated, horny substance, which extends far beyond both ends of the valves. In outline (fig. 3 b) they are mitre-shaped, or rounded and sub-triangular, a little curved, and more or less elongated, being most so in young specimens; they are, however, less elongated and rather more massive than in C. balænaris. Terga,—these seem entirely absent in most specimens; but in one (fig. 3 a) I found a rudiment, namely, a short thin plate of shell, barely visible to the naked eye, extending parallel and near to the tergal margin of the scutum. The lips of the aperture of the sack are prominent, and highly so towards the carinal end.

Structure of Shell and Radii.—Owing to the shell not spreading much at the base, new folds in the walls are much seldomer formed, and therefore the external longitudinal ribs (i. e. the terminal transversely elongated loops), are much seldomer divided, than in C. balænaris or reginæ; even rather large specimens sometimes having only the original eighteen folds.[125] When new folds are formed, only one is formed on one, viz., the rostral, side of each suture, instead of on both sides, as in C. balænaris. The inner ends of the folded walls, surrounding the basal membrane, are narrow, instead of being almost square, as in C. balænaris. The lower edge of the sheath, which projects freely, descends almost to the level of the basal edges of the walls. The outer ends of the folded walls, forming the transverse loops, are internally filled up solidly by calcareous matter, instead of by septa forming tubes, as in C. balænaris. The radii (Pl. 16, fig. 2) are a little thicker in the lower and outer than in the upper and inner part of each compartment; in the middle, they do not reach the sheath by about half the thickness of the compartment, and consequently they are separated from the plates (c′′ in fig. 1 and 7) on which the alæ rest, by large chambers (v in fig. 7), which extend up to nearly the apices of the compartments: the extent, however, to which the upper ends of these chambers have been solidly filled up, varies a little. The sinuous plates forming the main portion of the compound radii are rather thinner and closer together than in C. balænaris. The alæ are thick, being thickest in the middle part, and there equal the radii in thickness; their lower margins are very short compared with their upper margins, hence they are almost wedge-formed.

Mouth.—The teeth and fine hairs on the labrum are sometimes obscure, and sometimes plain: close outside the bottom of the medial notch, there is a small hard prominence. The palpi are broad; on their basal exterior margins there is a short row of spines, which do not equal in length the width of the palpi, and therefore are not so long as in C. balænaris. The mandibles have five main teeth, of which the second and third show only an obscure rudiment of being double; between these two teeth, and between the third and fourth tooth, there is a small intermediate tooth: the inferior angle is narrow, rounded, and spinose. The extremity of the apodeme of the maxillæ is expanded.

Cirri.—I have only to remark, that the pedicel of the first cirrus is extremely broad, and that the rami are set on in an unusually crooked manner: the basal segment of the shorter and broader ramus of this cirrus has its dorsal surface produced into a plate fringed with very fine hairs.

Geographical Distribution.—I have received only four specimens with certain localities attached to them: namely, the Arctic Seas of Scandinavia; the coast of the United States, and of Britain; and the Gulf-Stream. There is also a specimen in the British Museum, sent by Mr. Stephenson, mingled with shells of Mollusca from New Zealand; but a Coronula, procured from a floating whale in the early part of the outward voyage, might so easily be sent home with specimens subsequently collected in another county, that I do not as yet fully admit that this species is an inhabitant of the Southern Pacific Ocean: I am less willing to admit this, from suspecting that C. reginæ in the Pacific, replaces the C. diadema of our Northern Seas.