NO. IQ.] ECHINODERMS OF CONNECTICUT. 67 



sometimes found. Occasionally the surface is mottled red and 

 purple. It has been said that a glass dish rilled with these star- 

 fishes might vie with a tulip bed in gaiety and vividness of tints. 

 The oral surface is deep yellow. 



The few large eggs laid by each female in early spring 

 develop by a complicated metamorphosis, but the adult condition 

 is reached without passing through a free-swimming stage. In 

 this species the eggs and young are protected beneath the disk 

 of the mother. 



Class 2. OPHIUROIDEA 



The representatives of this class are known popularly as 

 serpent stars, snake stars, brittle stars or sand stars. The 

 species which occur in the waters of Long Island Sound are small 

 and inconspicuous as compared with the common starfish or 

 the sea-urchin, and are seldom noticed by the ordinary visitor to 

 the seashore. They are protectively colored, so that it is very 

 easy to overlook them when their slender arms are stretched 

 out among the roots of the eelgrass or coiled up in crevices of 

 rocks. Furthermore they are of a retiring disposition and largely 

 nocturnal in their habits, remaining secluded as much as possible 

 during the daytime. Some forms live beneath stones or hidden 

 among seaweeds in small crevices of the rocks. One species, 

 Amphioplus abditus, lives buried in the mud, with one or more 

 arms projecting above the surface. It is only when they are 

 disturbed and are moving their delicate arms in an effort to 

 escape that they are at all likely to attract the attention even of 

 a trained observer. And, finally, although they occur in great 

 abundance in certain localities, in most places they are so scarce or 

 so well protected by their habits and coloration that careful 

 search for hours at a favorable tide will fail to disclose a single 

 specimen. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XII. Variation, Ophiopholis aculeata. 



Photographs of five individuals to show some of the variations in form, 

 length of arms, and color patterns of this extremely variable species. 

 These figures represent but a few of the innumerable positions which the 

 arms can assume in the living animal. In the upper left-hand figure all 

 the arms are in process of regeneration. (All figures three- fourths natural 

 size.) 



