282 Annals of the South African Museum. 



having six rays, but seen from below, it is obviously a 5-rayed spe- 

 cimen in which one ray split very early in life and has since devel- 

 oped as two rather widely diverging rays. 



P.F. 3010. False Bay, Cape Colony; littoral. 3 specimens; adult. 



P.F. 5008. Rockland Point, False Bay, N.W. '/4 N., 2 miles. 

 23 fms. R. 1 specimen ; adult. 



P.F. 14711. Saldanha Bay, Cape Colony; low tide. 1 specimen; 

 adult. 



P.F. 15908. False Bay, Cape Colony. 11 fms. R. 2 specimens; 

 adult. 



P.F. 16151. False Bay, Cape Colony. 9 fms. Brk. sh. 2 speci- 

 mens; young. 



Mossel Bay, Cape Colony. 1 specimen; adult, poor. 



ASTERINA GRANIFERA Vttf. SPORACANTHA *, Var. nOV. 



Plate XVII. Fig. 3. 



Three specimens of Asterina, which I am satisfied are but a 

 variety of granifera, look so different that I at first believed them a 

 distinct species. The alcoholic specimens are distinctly pinkish and 

 this color is evident when dry, whereas the specimens of granifera 

 are yellowish, though sometimes with a pinkish cast. The colour 

 in life of both the type form and the variety is said to be bright 

 orange-red, with the madreporite more or less violet. The chief 

 character however is the spinulation of the abactinal plates; in the 

 typical form these plates are well covered and often densely packed 

 with minute spinelets; in the present variety these plates are more 

 or less bare, the spinelets occurring in marginal or single, transverse 

 series, or irregularly scattered ; they are rather larger than in the 

 typical form and are generally acute; the surface of the larger 

 plates where the spines are lacking is more or less evidently sha- 

 greened or minutely tnberculated. 



I am led to regard this form as only a variety of granifera be- 

 cause it occurs at the same stations with the typical from, and in 

 the latter there is more or less individual diversity in the density 

 of the spinulation of the abactinal plates. 



The largest of the specimens of sporacantha has R ^ 53 mm., 

 br ^= 23 mm. and v.d. = 19 mm.; the form is thus very thick and 

 heavy. The other specimens are less stout in every way but they 



* OTzogdi; scattered -f- axai'Qa = spine, in reference to the widely scattered 

 abactinal spinelets. 



