280 Prof. E. Forbes on a new British Starfish. 



milar to those employed by Professors Ehrenberg, Schwann* 

 and R. Wagner. On this subject I cannot refer to a higher 

 authority than that of Joseph Jackson Lister, who, after a 

 close examination, describes my deeper object-glasses as "very 

 finely corrected every way." 



XLII. — On a new British Starfish of the genus Goniaster. 

 By Prof. Edward Forbes, V.P.W.S., F.L.S., F.B.S. &c. 



[With a Plate.] 



The very splendid addition to the catalogue of British Star- 

 fishes, the only one found since the publication of my work on 

 those animals, which I am about to describe, was discovered by 

 an active naturalist, Mr. Robert Maclaurin of Coldingham, 

 who exhibited it to the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club at their 

 meeting held December 21, 1842, where he pointed it out as 

 distinct from any recorded British species. It was found be- 

 tween St. Abb's Head and the Isle of May, and was brought 

 up on the lines of the fishermen from a depth of about 30 

 fathoms. 



It belongs to the same group of Goniasters with the G, 

 equestris, to which species it is nearly allied, but differs re- 

 markably in form from any species of the genus. The ar- 

 rangement and form of the granulations, tubercles, marginal 

 plates, and those remarkable bodies to which I have in the 

 description applied the name of stomata, further distinguish 

 it from its immediate ally. 



Sp. Ch. Goniaster abbensis. G. corpore planiusculo, orbiculari, an- 

 giitis in brachiis productis, infra et supra tuberculis, granulis sto- 

 matibusque vestito. 



Description. — Upper surface. — Disc round, interrupted by 

 the bases of five short arms, each of which is as long as a third 

 of the breadth of the disc. Surface plane, thickly covered by 

 granules, among which are irregularly interspersed numerous 

 mammilliform tubercles (transformed spines), and at intervals 

 spinules in pairs forming stomata (transformed pedicellariae ?) 

 of an ovate form. No appearance of an anal pore. Madre- 

 poriform tubercle nearer the margin than centre, large, ru- 

 gose. Upper surface of arms (which are prolongations of the 

 angles of disc) similarly covered with the centre. 



Margin bordered by a double series of irregularly quadrate 

 plates, somewhat arched at their free borders, and each edged 

 by a single row of minute square granules. The upper series 

 bear from one to four mammiform tubercles : when more than 



