REPORT ON .THE ASTEROIDEA. 309 



irregularity. On a moderate-sized plate there are about five granules in a line. Several 

 of the adambulacral plates on each side of the furrow have a small pedicellaria with three 

 or four valves, which are squamiform and very little longer than the height of the gran- 

 ules. The pedicellaria is usually situated in the first line of granules behind the furrow 

 series of spinelets, and lies between the adoral margin of the plate and the middle of the 

 line. 



The actinal intermediate plates are square or subrhomboid, and are covered with rather 

 large, uniform, semiglobular granules, definitely spaced ; a few of the plates in each area 

 bear a small valvate pedicellaria, the jaws of which are but slightly higher than the 

 granules, but are twice as broad. They are placed over a puncture in the plate, and are 

 surrounded by a small circular scrobicule, devoid of granules. 



The armature of the mouth-plates is granuliform on the outer part of the mouth, and 

 here scarcely distinguishable from those on the actinal intermediate plates, but the gran- 

 ules increase in size as they approach the inner end of the plates, and as they assume the 

 true spinelet form they also become subprismatic in shape. 



Locality. — Station 125. Off the western coast of Brazil, near the mouth of the Rio 

 San Francisco. September 12, 1873. Lat. 10° 46' 0" S., long. 36° 2' 0" W. Depth 1200 

 fathoms. Red mud. Surface temperature 77°'0 Fahr. 



Remarks. — Although I have felt some doubt as to the propriety of regarding this form 

 as a distinct species, I do not see my way to rank it merely as a variety of Nymphaster 

 protentus. The much shorter ray, the smaller number of granules on the abactinal plates, 

 the absence of any external spinelets in the armature of the adambulacral plates, and the 

 substitution in their place of numerous granules, all seem contradictory to such a view. 

 Indeed the characters enumerated are quite at variance with what one would expect to 

 find in a merely larger development of the form described as Nymphaster protentus, espe- 

 cially when regard is had to the relative characters of that species and Nymphaster albidus 

 described in the preceding pages. 



Careful study of the three forms, Nymphaster protentus from Station 3, Nymphaster 

 albidus from the Cape Yerde Islands, and Nymphaster basilicus from Station 125, lead to 

 the almost inevitable conclusion that if the small Nymphaster albidus should ultimately 

 prove to be the young of Nymphaster protentus, the specimen under notice (Nymphaster 

 basilicus) cannot be a merely larger-grown example of that form, as the characters it 

 presents do not accord with the scheme of growth stages indicated by the other two forms ; 

 and vice versd, if this large individual (Nymphaster basilicus) be considered as the adult 

 form of the type Nymphaster protentus, the small specimen Nymphaster albidus, from the 

 Cape Verde Islands, must be considered as an independent species. 



Under these circumstances the course that has seemed to me to be the least open to 

 objection has been that of ranking the three forms, provisionally at least, as separate 

 .-pecies. 



