JAPANESE ASTEROIDEA. 321 



" Actinal intermediate plates.- — A eliaracteristic of this species is tlie very 

 crowded polygonal, flat-topped, smooth actinal intermediate granules. They 

 are not at all globular, and this character seems fairly constant. It is well 

 marked in the Washington specimens and serves admirably in connection 

 Avith other features to separate japonicus from leptoceramus. The latter 

 species has spaced hemispherical granules. 



" The small bivalved pedicellariae vary considerably in numbers. They 

 may be restricted to the angle adjacent to mouth plates, or scattered j)art 

 "vvay or all along the row of plates adjacent to adambulacrals. Many 

 specimens, but not a majority, have them also sparingly elsewhere on the 

 intermediate areas (Misaki, Washington, Bering Sea). 



" Adamhulacral plates. — In proportions the jJates vary from being as 

 wide as long to wider than long. The outer edge is frequently oblique or 

 obtusely angular. The furrow spinelets are prismatic or subquadrate in 

 section, blunt, usually but not always with a slightly curved, oblique, base- 

 line. The Washington examples have proximally four or five, rarely six, 

 f uiTow spinelets, distally three to five ; the Misaki specimen proximally six 

 or seven, distally six spinelets, and the base line is more evidently oblique. 

 Large Alaskan examples have proximally five or six spinelets, distally four 

 or five. Yoimg Alaskan specimens (11 = 30 mm.) have fom' or five spinelets 

 throughout. The Misaki specimen has rather shorter spinelets than the 

 Alaskan and Washington examples. The first series of actinal gi-anules 

 varies from three to five. Far along the fm-row one of these granules is 

 enlarged into a blunt tubercle. The bare space between the fmTow spine- 

 lets and first series of granules is variable in width, wider in the Japanese 

 specimen than in the Alaskan or Washington examples. The number of 

 granules exclusive of the first series varies from about twelve to twenty- 

 two. The small number occm-s when there is a pedicellaria on the plate. 

 In specimen A, before cited, veiy few of the adambulacrals have pedicel- 

 larise. In the Misaki example nearly all have one. Nearly as great a 

 range of difference is present in the Washington examples, and in Bering 

 Sea specimens, as, for example, station 3G08. 



" Young. — The j'oung bear a great resemblance to C. granularis (ßETZ.). 



