SPINY CROSSFISH. 81 



and the Ophiuroe. I do not think it can. The colour is 

 reddish or orange. A specimen taken on the Manx coast 

 was bright red. Mr. Couch describes his example as 

 " reddish brown ; tufts round the spines yellow ; interior 

 of the stomach pale-green. 11 



The Spiny Orossfish is a local species, as far as I know 

 confined to the western shores of Britain. I have taken 

 it in Skye and elsewhere among the Hebrides, half buried 

 in sand and gravel, at low water ; also in the Kyles of 

 Bute by the dredge in fifteen fathoms. Mr. R. Ball has 

 taken it in deep water at Youghal on the Irish coast, 

 where he found many specimens of Natica Alderi, a fa- 

 vourite article of food with the Starfishes, in its stomach. 

 Dr. J. L. Drummond has found it in a young state at 

 Belfast ; and Mr. Allman has frequently procured it on 

 the south-west coast of Cork, where it is abundant, chiefly 

 on a rocky bottom. Mr. Philip Maclagan found it on the 

 coast of Ayrshire. Mr. Wallace has a specimen from 

 deep water on the Manx coast ; and Mr. Couch records 

 it as a native of Cornwall, also from deep water. 



The " Pentadactylosaster spinosus regularis 11 of Link, 

 found by Luid in Cornwall, and on the west of Ireland, 

 was, I doubt not, the young of this species. Petiver 

 figures the same as " Watty Penson's Sea-star from Ire- 

 land. 11 When young, the rays are much shorter in pro- 

 portion to the body than they afterwards become. When 

 very young, only an inch or two across, Uraster glacialis 

 bears a close resemblance to the young of the next species ; 

 but is easily distinguished by having the spines conic, 

 thickest at the base, whereas in Uraster rubens they are 

 nearly of the same thickness throughout. 



The Starfish usually called Asterias glacialis by British 

 authors, is not this but the next species. This, however, 



G 



