SHALLOW-WATER STARFISHES 247 



similar to the inferomarginals, but smaller and less prominent. The 

 interradial areas are rather large, acute-triangular, and covered with 

 oblong or elliptical unequal pseudopaxillae like the synactinals, but 

 smaller. 



The adambulacral plates have each two, or sometimes three, short, 

 acute, unequal, divergent furrow-spines, reduced to one distally. 

 Their actinal surface bears a row of about six or seven graded spines, 

 the inner one and that next to it being distinctly larger than the rest 

 and standing obliquely on the plate. These spines are webbed 

 together, and proximally stand in a curved transverse row. 



The four inner peroral spines at the apex of the jaws are large 

 and stout, subacute, the two median ones larger. They are flanked 

 on each side by about six smaller, tapered furrow-spines, decreasing 

 in length distally. On the actinal side of the jaws there are two lon- 

 gitudinal curved rows of epioral spines, webbed together, seven or 

 eight in each row, increasing in size adorally, the inner one in each 

 row distinctly larger. 



The color in life is usually either orange-yellow or purple, rarely 

 lemon-yellow. 



This species has a very extensive geographical distribution. It is 

 circumpolar, occurring at Greenland, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, 

 Iceland, and on the northern coasts of Europe and Asia, as far 

 south as Great Britain and East Siberia. 



On the Atlantic coast of America it is common as far south as 

 Cape Cod. It was taken by the U. S. Fish Commission at numerous 

 stations, in 5 to 150 fathoms, from Newfoundland to Cape Cod. 

 Common on the eastern coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, and in 

 the Bay of Fundy, from low water to 90 fathoms, and off Cape Cod, 

 20 to 50 fathoms. Taken on all the fishing banks off Nova Scotia, in 

 20 to 150 fathoms. 



On the northwest coast of America it is common in Bering Sea 

 and northern Alaska, and extends southward to Sitka. I have 

 studied specimens from Yakutat, and from off Juneau, Alaska, in 20 

 fathoms (Harriman Expedition). 



I have also examined one rather large, tumid, nine-rayed specimen, 

 in alcohol, from Bering Island (N. Grebnitsky, U. S. Nat. Mus.). 

 It has previously been recorded from Barents Sea, Kara Sea, and 

 East Siberia. 



Dr. Fisher records it from off the Shumagin Islands ; Kasaan Bay ; 

 and Kadiak, Alaska, in 12 to 123 fathoms; and from Queen Char- 

 lotte Sound, in 238 fathoms. 



