JAPANESE ASTEROIDEA. 213 



Ventrolaterals. — The ventrolaterals are rather nnmerons, formino^ 

 about 6 arc-shaped rows parallel with the inferomarginals. The 

 outermost row extends for a little over two-thirds of the lensrth 

 of the arm, and in the interbrachial angle there are two of these 

 plates corresponding to one inferomarginal (PI. II, fig. 25). The 

 second row may extend up to half the length of the arm, and 

 the third row 2 or 3 plates into the arm, while the rest are 

 wholly confined to the disk. It must at the same time be remarked 

 that these rows are not perfectly regular. Regarding for con- 

 venience the second inferomarginals as the limit of the interradial 

 area of the disk, there are some fifty ventrolateral plates in the 

 enclosed area for each interradius. The ventrolaterals are 

 covered with slender fragile spines, among which gome ten or 

 fifteen may be conspicuous by their size in a single interradial 

 area of the disk. They form in general a transitional form between 

 the outer spines of the adambulacral plates and those of the in- 

 feromarginals, those near the former being more like them, and 

 those near the latter being more or less like the inner spines of 

 the inferomarginals. In counting the spines of the actinal surface 

 of the adambulacrals, some care is necessary not to include the 

 spines on the ventrolaterals. 



Paxillce. — The paxillas are well spaced, and in both of my 

 specimens the coronal spinelets stand erect and parallel or even 

 convergent, somewhat like the hairs of a brush, and they are 

 comparatively long, being only slightly shorter than the height of 

 the pedicel ; so that, when a single paxilla is detached and viewed 

 from the side, it looks somewhat like a sea-anemone with its 

 tentacles all extended vertically upwards (PL II, fig. 31). The 

 paxillae vary considerably in size in different parts of the body. 



