REPORT ON TEE ASTEROIDEA. 569 



The ambulacra! furrows are wide, and the tube-feet, which are arranged quadriserially, 

 have a button-like, centrally invaginated terminal disk. 



Colour in alcohol, a dirty brownish grey, probably indicative of a purplish colour 

 when alive. 



Locality. — Station 191. In the Arafura Sea, north-west of the Arrou Islands. Sep- 

 tember 23, 1874. Lat. 5° 41' 0" S, long. 134° 4' 30" E. Depth 800 fathoms. Green 

 mud. Bottom temperature 39°'5 Fahr. ; surface temperature 82 ,- 2 Fahr. 



Iiema?ks. — Asterias vesiculosa is unlike any of the six-rayed forms at present 

 known ; its long, tapering rays, and the peculiar vesiculated character of the abactinal 

 and lateral areas, readily distinguish it from the other species. 



2. Asterias meridionalis, Perrier. 



Asterias meridionalis, Perrier, 1875, Revis. StelL Mus., p. 76 (Archives de Zool. expe>., t. iv. p. 310). 



Localities. — Station 149d. Off Royal Sound, Kerguelen Island. Depth 25 and 28 

 fathoms. Volcanic mud. 



Station 149e. Off Cape Maclear, Kerguelen Island. Depth 30 fathoms. Volcanic mud. 



Station 149h. Off Cumberland Bay, Kerguelen Island. Depth 127 fathoms. Vol- 

 canic mud. 



Off Kerguelen Island. Depth 10 to 50 fathoms. Volcanic mud. 



Off Marion Island. Depth 50 fathoms. Volcanic sand. 



3. Asterias perrier i, Smith. 



Asterias Perrieri, Smith, 1876, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 4, vol. xvii. p. 106 ; Phil. Trans., 



Zool. Kerguelen Island, 1879, vol. clxviii. p. 273, pi. xvi., figs. 2, la, 2b. 

 Othilia sexradiata, Studer, 1876, Monatsher. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, p. 458. 



Localities. — Station 149d. Off Royal Sound, Kerguelen Island. Depth 25 and 28 

 fathoms. Volcanic mud. 



Off Kerguelen Island. Depth 110 fathoms. Volcanic mud. 



Remarks. — The largest of the type examples of this species preserved in the British 

 Museum is remarkable from the fact (observed by Mr. Edgar A. Smith) that it "has a cluster 

 of some hundreds of young ones clinging to its ventral disk." On examining this specimen 

 recently, with a view to ascertain the nature of the attachment, I came to the conclusion 

 that this frequently observed but hitherto unexplained position of the young of certain 

 species of Asterias in the region of the mouth is due to the fact that the ovarial tubules are 

 ejected through the actinostomial opening, and that the ova then complete their develop- 

 ment in situ, the embryos remaining attached to the mother by means of the primitive 

 connection of their "larval organ" with the now disintegrated filaments of the ovarial 

 membrane. 



(zool. cdall. exp. — part li. — 1888.) 72 



