REPORT ON THE ASTEROIDEA. 243 



It may be observed that the Southern-Ocean forms, when compared with those from South 

 America, have the rays broader at the base, and though relatively shorter are rather more 

 distinctly cylindrical, the union of the abactinal and lateral areas being less angular and 

 less conspicuous. The abactinal area is habitually much more inflated, which gives the 

 variety a conspicuously puffed-up appearance. The small isolated spinelets or enlarged 

 squamules on the marginal plates are smaller and less developed ; and in young examples 

 may be absent altogether from the infero-marginal plates and represented on the summit 

 of the supero-marginal plates by a squamule only very slightly greater than those forming 

 the rest of the covering of the plates. The peculiar curvature of the lateral spine- 

 lets in the adambulacral armature is less pronounced and is often scarcely noticeable. 

 These modifications, viewed in conjunction with their constancy and the wide separation 

 of the localities, appear to me, after a careful study of a large series of examples, sufficient 

 to warrant the recognition of the variety by name. The colour in alcohol of the variety is 

 also different, being of a warmer shade, approaching pink or light pinkish brown. 



An example from Heard Island dredged in 75 fathoms is fully twice as large as the 

 generality of specimens belonging to this species collected during the Expedition. In the 

 two examples from this locality the rays are not relatively so broad at the base as in the 

 Kerguelen specimens, and are more angular at the junction of the abactinal and lateral 

 areas : they have notwithstanding the " obese " appearance ; and I have provisionally 

 ranked them with the variety. Their colour in alcohol is somewhat darker. 



Localities. — Station 149h. Off Cumberland Bay, Kerguelen Island. January 29, 

 1874. Depth 127 fathoms. Volcanic mud. 



Station 151. Off Heard Island. February 7, 1874. Lat. 52° 59' 30" S., long. 

 73° 33' 30" E. Depth 75 fathoms. Volcanic mud. Surface temperature 36°-2 Fahr. 



2. Bathybiaster vexillifer, Wyville Thomson, sp. 



Archaster vexillifer, "Wyville Thomson, 1873, The Depths of the Sea, p. 150, fig. 25. 



Locality. — " Porcupine " Expedition : 



Station 76. 1869. In the Faeroe Channel. Lat. 60° 36' N., long. 3° 58' W. Depth 

 344 fathoms. Bottom temperature— 1°"1 C. ; surface temperature 10°'l C. 



Remarks. — This species is included here on the strength of the description and figure 

 given by Sir Wyville Thomson. I have never seen the type or any other specimen from 

 the " Porcupine " collection which can be referred to it. Danielssen and Koren 1 have 

 already pointed out the probability that the form belongs to this genus, a view in which I 

 entirely concur, so far as judgment can be drawn from the description and woodcut pub- 

 lished in The Depths of the Sea. Viguier, 2 on the other hand, has expressed the opinion 



1 Den Norske Nordhavs-Expedition, 1876-78, Zoologi, xi. Asteroidea, 1884, p. 94. 



2 Archives de Zool. exper. 1878, t. vii. p. 240. 



