BY THEEEV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS, F.G.S., F.L.S., ETC. 199 



of locomotion. In all I was able to get about two dozen specimens, 

 but a good many of tbem more or less damaged. Altogether it 

 is a most disagreeable kind of fishing. The rocks are covered 

 with oysters and balani, and one requires strong leather gloves 

 to avoid being seriously cut by the thin edges of the shells which 

 project from the surface. In my first attempt to capture a 

 8tomo2meusfes my hands were covered with blood in a few minutes. 



I believe the same species occur in Port Denison, and I dare 

 say in many other places along the coast, because it may be so 

 easily overlooked in its hiding place, and so much of the coast 

 has been so slightly examined, that I should not be surprised to 

 find that it is very abundant. It is I think nearly certain that the 

 species we have in Australia is not the same as that described as 

 S. variolaris, by Lamarck, and figured by Agassiz in his '^ Revision 

 of the Echini " In the first place our Australian specimens are 

 much larger, sometimes twice the size of any figured or described. 

 Then the colour is entirely different. The spines and test except 

 the tubercles are of a very deep purple-black colour, while in the 

 Mauritius and Indian specimens they are green and pur^ole. The 

 peculiar groove at the vertical suture which belongs to the genus 

 is much less waved. The arrangement of the tubercles is slightly 

 different, and the shape of the madreporiform body which is 

 moreover studded with small glossy milliary tubercles. Yet with 

 all these differences the points of resemblance with >S^. variolaris^ 

 are many. In this species, and in fact with nearly every urchin 

 known to me, when plunged into fresh cold water a purplish 

 fluid is seen to exude abundantly from the test, and I have some- 

 times thought that these animals might have a colour bag such 

 as Dolahella Rum])hii, Scalaria australis, and many species of Sepia. 



Strongylocentrotus eunjthrogrammus, Valenciennes. Though we 

 are said to have three species of this genus in Australia, yet this 

 appears to me to be the only one usually met with. It has a very 

 wide range, and like Ecliinometra lucunter varies a good deal in 

 the colour of the spines. Its habitat is in the clefts and crevices 



