STARFISHES OF THE PHILIPPINE SEAS AND 

 ADJACENT WATERS. 



By WAI.TER K. Fisher, 



Director of the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanfwd University and Curator 

 of Invertebrate Zoology, California Academy of Sciences. 



PREFACE. 



The following report is based upon an extensive collection of sea 

 btars made by the United States Fisheries steamer Albatross between 

 December, 1907, and December, 1910, in the region of the Philippine 

 Islands, Celebes, and Molucca Islands. 



The Philippine cruise of the Albatross was under the supervision 

 of Dr. Hugh M. Smith, then deputy commissioner, now commis- 

 sioner, of fisheries, to whom I am indebted not only for the privilege 

 of describing the starfish material, but also for his constant coopera- 

 tion during the progress of the work. 



The Albatross occupied 576 dredging stations, at 224 of which 

 starfishes were obtained, in addition to numerous shore stations. 

 There is appended to the introduction a list of dredging stations, 

 with data, and the species obtained at each station. 



The naturalists of the Albatross deserve credit for the excellent 

 preservation of the specimens — a result not always easy to achieve in 

 the unfavorable conditions of the Tropics. 



In addition to the Albatross material, two new forms are described 

 from the collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and a 

 number of specimens have been listed which were collected in the 

 Philippines by the late Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, U. S. Army. 



One hundred and ninety species and subspecies of sea stars were 

 orought back by the Albatross^ which with those just mentioned make 

 a total of 192 described or listed in this report. One hundred and 

 thirty-four species and subspecies are believed to be new. Most of 

 them have been described already in preliminary papers (see Bibliog- 

 raphy). A total of 90 species were not met with outside of the 

 Philippine Islands and the basin of the Sulu Sea, of which all but 

 four are new. One hundred and one species are either wider rang- 

 ing forms, or else were collected only in the China Sea, in Celebes 



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