14-6 Aster ias Johnstom. 



asunder in one or more pieces, and separate from the body 

 with a facility which is truly wonderful, and only rivalled by 

 some of the allied Ophiurae. The body is stellate, and of a 

 brownish or reddish orange colour; the back flattened and 

 rather smooth ; but, when viewed with a magnifier, appears 

 roughened with small tubercles, very closely set and irregu- 

 larly arranged, except at the margins, where they are some- 

 what larger, and disposed in lines: these tubercles consist 

 each of a short thick stalk, crowned with a circle of papillae, 

 which can be expanded or closed at the pleasure of the ani- 

 mal: rays 5 or 7, thrice the length of the diameter of the 

 disk, flattened, linear-lanceolate, armed beneath with strong 

 conical smooth spines placed on a transverse rib, and one half 

 the breadth of the ray : under surface straw-coloured : ten- 

 tacular avenues wide, the tentacula biserial only, and long. 

 In a large specimen, the diameter of the disk was 2 in.; length 

 of each ray 9 in., and its greatest breadth 1 J in. 



Our figure, which is considerably reduced, was drawn from 

 an individual that had seven rays. One of the rays, it will 

 be observed, has been broken short, and is in the act of re- 

 producing the lost portion. Three spines of the natural size 

 are shown at a. 



^ste n rias Jo'hnstoni. (Jig. 21.) 



Description. — Body square ; sinuated between the angles, of 

 which two are somewhat more produced than the others ; flat, 

 rough with papillary warts and miliary granules, the latter 

 encircling the dilated smooth base of the obtuse papillae ; these 

 granules and warts cover the surface, but in the centre of a 

 ring of granules there are frequent small apertures protected 



