JAPANESE ASTEEOIDEA. 493 



arrangement is not strictly adhered to ; e.g. in one interradius 

 there are five instead of four tubercles, and in another there are 

 five supernumerary smaller tubercles besides the two pairs that 

 are regularly present. All the tubercles are completely covered 

 over with flattened polygonal granules, and tipped by an im- 

 movable spine.^' In the interspaces between the tubercles, there 

 can be seen a reticulated skeleton, with large meshes, in which 

 there are numerous papular pores. The whole is thickly covered 

 over with conico-cylindrical granules of two sizes, larger ones and 

 minute ones scattered between the former. Between these gran- 

 ules there are small pedicellaria), which are tolerably numerous 

 (PI. XIV, fig. 226). 



Maclrcporite. — The madreporite is tolerably large, flat, nearly 

 lozenge- shaped in my specimen, and lies just outside the line con- 

 necting two of the apical tubercles. The surface is covered with 

 minute groove-like pores. 



Terminal plate. — The terminal plates are comparatively small 

 and inconspicuous. 



Locality. — Amami-Oshima, Linschoten Islands. Littoral. 



Specimen in S.C. 



Or east er lincki (Blainville). 



In Eees:'s work on Japan [:0o, p. 291] there is the following passage : 



" Der gewölmlickste Hitote, Oreaster muticus, wird von den Fisclierfranen als 



Gamwiclder benutzt." I imagine that the writer has here in mind the form 



1) I take this opportunity of remarking that the words " spines " and " tubercles " have been 

 indiscriminately used by most writers on Oreaster. Several of them speak of the "apical naked 

 portion " of the spine. It must however be understood that this " naked portion " is itself a real 

 spine formed either by a single enlarged surface granule or by a fixsion of several such and 

 homologous with the movable spines of other parts and other species. Itself being homologous 

 •with a granule or granules it is but natural that it should be naked. The remaioiag part of a 

 tubercle is an enlarged ossicle. 



