264 VERRILL 



Genus Patiria Gray. 



Type, P. coccinea Gray, 1840. 



Patiria GRAY, 1840; Gray (pars), op. cit., 1866, p. 16 (not of Perrier, nor of 



Sladen). 



Asterina (pars) PERKIER, SLADEN, FISHER, and others. 



Patiria VERRILL, op. cit, 1867; Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. xxxv, pp. 480, 482, 

 May, 1813. 



Disk broad, usually pentagonal, sometimes hexagonal, depressed, 

 with thin margins and short rays. Dorsal plates unequal, spinu- 

 lated, more or less imbricated, the larger ones crescent-shaped, with 

 the exposed edges rounded, becoming small distally; between these 

 are many much smaller rounded ones. Marginal plates small, 

 scarcely larger than the adjacent dorsals, upper ones usually some- 

 what smaller; both with marginal spinelets. Papulae are distributed 

 over most of the upper surface of the rays and central part of disk 

 in radial rows. Interactinal plates have spines in small combs, often 

 webbed. The larger dorsal ossicles have three or four internal lobes, 

 by which they are connected together. The distal interradial plates 

 have internal, conical, descending processes which join projections 

 from the ventral plates. 



Adambulacral plates have a furrow-comb of about three to five 

 webbed spines, and a group of two to five spines, in a row. 



Madreporic plate large, dorsal, much nearer to the center than the 

 margin. 



PATIRIA MINIATA (Brandt) Verrill. 

 Plate vn, figures i, 2; plate cvm, figures I, 2 (varieties). 



Asterias miniata BRANDT, Prodromus, p. 68, 1835. 



Asteriscus miniatus STIMPSON, op. cit., vi, p. 90, 1857. 



Patiria miniata VERRILL, Trans. Conn. Acad., i, pp. 234, 236, 1867 (distri- 

 bution) ; Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. xxxv, p. 482, 1913. 



Asterina miniata SLADEN, op. cit., p. 774, 1889. Verrill, American Naturalist, 

 XLIII, p. 547, fig. 2 (six-rayed), September, 1909. Fisher, op. cit, 191 ib, 

 p. 254, pi. LVI, figs. 6, 8; pi. LXI, figs. 1-4; pi. LXII, figs, i, 2. 



Size large; disk rather thick; rays normally five, often six, trian- 

 gular, rapidly tapered, about as broad as long. Radii of a large five- 

 rayed specimen, 46 mm. and 92 mm. ; ratio, 1:2. A large six- 

 rayed specimen has the radii 44 mm. and 85 mm.; ratio, i: 1.93. 

 The disk is convex or swollen, in well preserved specimens, along 

 the radial areas, but usually with depressions between, in large 

 specimens. 



The larger dorsal plates along the median radial areas of the disk 

 and ravs are prominent, crescent-shaped, covered with short, rough 



