REPORT ON THE ASTEROIDEA. 433 



5. Stichaster felipes, n. sp. (PI. CI. figs. 1 and 2 ; PL GUI. figs. 7 and 8). 



Rays five. R = 66 mm.; r = 10 to 11 mm. R>G r. Breadth of a ray near the base, 

 12 to 15 mm. 



Rays elongate, rather broad at the base, and tapering gradually therefrom up to the 

 extremity, their form being more or less cylindrical, slightly flattened. The disk is slightly 

 convex in the region covered by the primary apical plates ; and there is a rather deep and 

 broad depression in each interradium external to this area, from which a depressed sulcus 

 proceeds up to the summit of the interbrachial arc. The interbrachial arcs are acute. 



The abactinal area of the disk is occupied on fully the central half by large permanent 

 primary apical plates. All the plates along the rays are arranged in regular longitudinal 

 series. The abactinal plates may be defined as follows : a median series of large, broad 

 plates, succeeded on each side by an intermediate series of smaller plates, and a lateral 

 series of large plates broader than those of the median series. Then follow two series of 

 smaller marginal plates, which staud wholly in the lateral wall of the ray, the plates of 

 the superior series being larger than those of the companion series. Between these and 

 the adambulacral plates intervene two, or at the base of the ray perhaps three, series of 

 intermediate plates. 



The abactinal and marginal plates bear short, robust, clavate, obtuse, equal spinelets, 

 which viewed from above appear little more than large hemispherical granules. On the 

 plates of the median series there may be either a double line of spinelets, the lines more 

 or less unequal and irregular, or an angulated line with a few additional spinelets within 

 the angle, the number varying from five to nine. On the small intermediate plates are 

 not more than two or three in a group. On the broad lateral plates is a single line of six 

 or seven spinelets, or an angulated and supplemented line as in the median series. About 

 three spines are present on the supero-marginal plates, and seldom more than two (some- 

 times three and sometimes one) on the infero-marginal series. All these spinelets are well 

 spaced. All the plates are covered with thick membrane, and on this are attached 

 numerous isolated, well spaced, forcipiform pedicellarke, which at first sight have the 

 appearance of smaller granules accompanying the larger granules (the spines above 

 described). Large papular areas occur at the angles of the plates, which fall in regular 

 longitudinal lines along the ray. There are from three to five papuke in each. Close to 

 the margin of the papular area may be one or more very large forficiform pedicellarise. 

 These are of remarkable form, and resemble two hands clasped together when the fingers 

 are bent at right angles and interlocked. The jaws of the pedicellariae are longer than 

 the spines on the plates and also broader. Seen in some aspects their outline suggests 

 fancifully the shape of a cat's paw with the claws exposed. These large pedicellariae are 

 numerous in the interbrachial arc. 



The adambulacral plates are small, and their armature consists of two short, cylin- 

 drical, obtuse, equal spinelets, which radiate apart and normally form two regular longi- 



(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. — PART LI. — 1888.) 55 



