The Echinoderm Fauna of South Africa. 425 



deep concavity. Polian vessels 1 or 2. Stone canal small, lying in 

 the dorsal mesentery. Color, in life, red; in alcohol the specimens 

 are cream-color or very light brown. 



Calcareous particles very numerous but all of one kind, though no 

 two are exactly alike. The fundament is a slender rod of variable 

 length, which is forked at one end, and usually at both ends. All 

 the extraordinary diversities shown by the particles result from the 

 more or less extensive development of the forks and the cur\r that 

 they take in growing; often the forks at each end of the rod curve 

 inward, fusing when they meet, thus forming a straight rod, flattened 

 and perforated at each end; a totally different result comes from the 

 forks curving rapidly outwards until the original rod is met in the mid- 

 line or forks from opposite ends of the rods meet; a curious triper- 

 forate plate arises when only one end of the rod has a fork and 

 these forks are as large as the main rod; each of the three then 

 forks and curves sharply outwards until adjoining forks meet and 

 thus a very symmetrical ring with three radial bars is formed. By 

 unequal growth of the forks, most asymmetrical and even bizarre 

 figures arise and by the use of the imagination many, if not all, of the 

 letters of the alphabet, either in script or print form, can be made out. 



P.F. 918. One mile east of Cove Rock, East London. Low tide. 

 1 specimen; adult. 



P.F. 10008. Sebastian Bluff. Low tide. Colour red. 1 specimen; 

 adult; eviscerated. 



P.F. coll. Sebastian Bay. 15, VII, '00. Low tide. Colour red. 

 3 specimens ; young. 



Holotype, South African Museum No. A 6455. P.F. 918. 



I have been unable to satisfy myself whether- this interesting and 

 well marked species is a Stichojjus or a Holothuria. There seem to 

 be, in one specimen at least, two genital bundles and the ambulacral 

 appendages are also Stichopus-\ike dorsally. On the other hand the 

 small size, red color, slender calcareous ring and absence of numerous 

 pedicels ventrally, all are features more like Jloluf/niria. The cal- 

 careous particles are rather more like some species of Holuthuria 

 than they are like those of any known Sticliopus. For- the present, 

 therefore the species may be placed in Holothuria with the under- 

 standing that more and better material may put it distinctly in 

 Stichopus. 



STICHOPUS CHLORONOTUS. 

 Brandt, 1835. Prod. Descr. Anirn., p. 250. 

 This widespread Indo-Pacifrc species is easily recognized in life 



