The Echinoderm Fauna of South Africa. 309 



its nearest relative, although the type of that genus is from Japanese 

 waters, and no species are known from the southern oceans. Some 

 species of Asteriidae are already known which occasionally have three 

 adambulacral spines on a plate, but there are no connecting links 

 between such forms and this remarkable South African starfish. 



BRISINGIDAE. 



This remarkable family, not hitherto known from South African 

 waters, is represented in the PIETER FAURE collection by the follow- 

 ing species. 



BRISINGA CRICOPHORA. 

 Sladen, 1889. CHALLENGER Ast., p. 606; pi. 109, figs. 6-8. 



There are two specimens of Rrisinga in the collection from South 

 Africa, and they seem to be representatives of this species which 

 Sladen described from a single fragmentary individual taken in the 

 West Indies. The specimens before me answer well to Sladen's 

 description and figures except in two or three points. The type of 

 cricophora had but 11 rays while each of the PIETER FAURE speci- 

 mens had 13, though all are now detached. As the number of arms 

 in other species of Brisinga shows no little diversity, it is not strange 

 that this discrepancy occurs. On many adambulacral plates there 

 may be on the aboral margin, well up in the furrow, one or even 

 two very delicate spines. These would have been very easily over- 

 looked by Sladen if he did not dry his specimen. The oral plates 

 have three pairs of superoral spines, instead of tw'O as in Sladen's 

 description, and two on each margin instead of one. These differences 

 are too trivial it seems to me, in the light of such scanty material, 

 to warrant describing the South African Brisinga as a distinct species. 

 The type of cricophora was 20 mm. across the disk ; the present 

 specimens are about 24 mm. The curious actinal spines at the base 

 of the ray are quite well marked but rather similar spines occur in 

 a specimen of B. endecacnemos in the M. C. Z. collection. This speci- 

 men was collected by the TALISMAN and identified by Perrier, by 

 whom it was sent to the M. C. Z. If Sladen is right in stating that 

 the basal actinal spines in endecacnemos are needle-like, this TALISMAN 

 specimen ought to be referred to cricophora, but I have no authentic 

 material of endecacnemos for comparison. 



P.F. 18960. 36 44' S., 21 4-4' E., 250 fms. Gn. s., st. 2 speci- 

 mens; adult. 



Fisher (1917, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (8), vol. 20, p. 426) places 

 cricophora in his genus Craterobrisinga, a group separated from Bri- 



