408 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



Eastern Archipelago : One species between the parallels of 0° and 20° S. 



Leicester speciosus, from Flores, and extending into the Pacific. 



Pacific : Two species between the parallels of 30° N. and 30° S. 



Leicester teres, from California. Leiaster speciosus, from the Fiji 

 Islands, and extending into the Eastern Archipelago. 

 /3. Bath y metrical range : All the species appear to be confined to shallow water. 

 y. Nature of the Sea-bottom : Leiaster speciosus on Coral reefs. 



CJiorologiccd Synopsis of the Species herein mentioned. 



1. Leiaster speciosus, v. Martens. 



Leiaster speciosus, v. Martens, 1866, Arcbiv f. Naturgesch., Jahrg. xxxii., Bd. i. p. 70. 



Locality. — Kandavu, Fiji Islands. On the reefs. 



Remarks. — The form which I have referred to this species is very nearly allied to 

 Leiaster leachii, Gray ; indeed the characters are almost identical. The rays, however, 

 are broader, and pedicellarise are present as in von Martens' species, but not nearly so 

 numerous as in his type. 



The skin which covers the whole of the animal in this species is remarkably thick and 

 leathery ; and Dr von Martens informs me that, in the case of his example from Flores, 

 it was slimy and disagreeable to the touch when the animal was alive. 



On a few of the inner series of spinelets on the adambulacral plates, on the inner 

 part of the furrow, a slight trace of channelling may be detected here and there, but it is 

 so faint that it has almost the appearance of having been obliterated by growth. 



Genus LincJcia, Nardo. 



LinHa, Nardo, De Asteriis, Oken's Isis, 1834, p. 717. 



Ophidiaster (pars), Miiller and Troschel, Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, April 1840, 



p. 103. 

 LincJcia, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., Dec. 1840, vol. vi. p. 284. 

 Acalia (subgen.), Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1840, vol. vi. p. 285. 



This well-known and essentially tropical genus presents a wide area of distribution, 

 but is not known to extend beyond the 40th parallel north and the 30th parallel south 

 of the Equator. Notwithstanding its great dispersion the genus maintains a remarkable 

 uniformity of facies, and exhibits an extraordinarily small amount of morphological 

 plasticity. 



