SEA LILIES, STARFISHES, ETC — CLARK. 15 



significant ; nevertheless it is noteworthy that all recorded 

 specimens of C. briareus and all of the thirty specimens at 

 hand are blackish-brown, brownish-black, or purplish-black ; 

 one recorded from Western Australia by A. H. Clark has lighter 

 lines on the arm. Aside from colour, the flaring distal margins 

 of the low radials and of the brachials in C. perplexum are quite 

 different from those of C. briareus, while the smoothness of 

 the brachials and pinnules is noticeable, as contrasted with 

 the rough arms of C. briareus. I have carefully compared the 

 single specimen with the descriptions of C. weberi and C. rolula 

 of A. H. Clark, at the kind suggestion of that well-known 

 authority on the group, but the cirri show at once that it is 

 not C. weberi, and the characters of the centrodorsal, the 

 cirri and the brachials seem sufficient to distinguish it from 

 C. rotula. The geographical isolation of this interesting 

 comatuhd is remarkable for no near relative has been taken 

 south of Port Molle and C. briareus is not kno^vn from south 

 of Port Denison, some six hundred miles to the north. 



Log. — Eleven miles south by east of Ballina, New South 

 Wales, 27-28 fathoms. 



COMANTHUS PLECTROPHORUM,^ Sp. TIOV. 



(Plate IV., fig. 1.) 



Disk about 30 mm. in diameter ; arms rather more than 

 100 mm. long. Centrodorsal about 10 mm. in diameter and 

 more than 2 mm. thick ; its bare central area is very rough, 

 slightly concave and about 6 mm. across. Cirrus -sockets in 

 three crowded and irregular horizontal series. Cirri LV.-LX., 

 29-37, usually about 32 ; some proximal segments, say 4-9, 

 are cylindrical and longer than thick, 5 is particularly long ; 

 beyond 10 the distal dorsal margin projects sHghtly, the 

 segments become compressed and a marked dorsal keel is 

 formed, which is most fully developed on the four or five 

 segments preceding the penultimate ; seen from the dorsal 

 side this is more of a tubercle than a keel, but the lateral 

 aspect is very keel-like. 



Radials entirely concealed ; IBr 1 wide and low, in contact 

 for about three-fourths of their height ; radial axillaries, very 

 low and wide, at least three times as wide as high, not at all in 

 contact with each other. IIBr series 4 (3+4), in one 

 instance only, 2, well separated from each other externally ; 

 internally IIBri are more or less in contact. IIIBr series 



1. 7r\yKTpoi'=a, spur-f 0o/96'w=to bear, in reference to the notable 

 spurs on the pinnules. 



