STAEFISHES OP THE PHILIPPINE SEAS. 147 



like group of very many, very sharp, slender spinelets. About 85 

 Avere counted on an average large paxilla from the disk, and the 

 peripheral spinelets, vrhich are blunt and only about one-fifth the 

 length of the others, form 1 or 2 cycles covering the bases of the 

 outermost spinelets. The height of the brush about equals that of 

 the pedicel, and the spinelets are usually bent inward. The inner 

 ends of the paxillae are small, so that when seen from the coelomic 

 side they appear to be well spaced. The paxilla is expanded into a 

 sort of flange above the lower end, this representing the " plate." On 

 the sides of the paxillar area the contour of the plate is elliptical, 

 sometimes with notched ends; on the radial area the plates are 

 roundish, with here and there short lobes. Papulae distributed all 

 over disk, without interruption at the radial line, where each area 

 may have 1 to 3 papulae. Between the lateral oblique rows of pax- 

 illae the papulae form a regular zigzag series (1 to an area) ; but at 

 base of ra}'^ and on disk they are arranged with 5 or 6 around any 

 one plate. 



Superomarginals 38 to 40, the first being about 2.5 times as wide as 

 long, while at middle of ray the breadth is about 1.2 times that of 

 length. In this respect the plates resemble those of nesiotes and 

 sladeni and differ from those of D. grandissimus Goto. The trans- 

 verse fascioles are very narrow, and appreciablv shallower than in 

 nesiotes. The surface of the plates is covered with a fine nap of 

 small, sharp, delicate, appressed spinelets, like those of the paxillae, 

 except in the middle of the plate, where they are only about half as 

 long. 



Inferomarginals extending laterally beyond the superomarginals. 

 and defining ambitus, forming a border about half as wide as the su- 

 peromarginals. The abactinal surface is covered with spinelets like 

 those of the superomarginals while the actinal surface is beset with 

 shorter and thicker, very small, sharp, subconical, slightly squami- 

 form spinelets, converging and increasing in length toward the 

 aboral, marginal tumidity of the plate where there is a tuft of con- 

 spicuous spinelets as in D. nesiotes^ 5 to 8 tapering, rather stout, and 

 often sharp spinelets being of predominant size. 



Actinal interradial areas large, tapering off gradually along the 

 ray. The series adjacent to adambulacrals extends as far as the thir- 

 teenth to thirty-second inferomarginal or nearl}' to end of ray. The 

 second series extends to the twenty-third or twenty-fourth, or three- 

 fourths the length of ray, the third series to about the sixteenth 

 inferomarginal or nearly half the length of ray. The front series ex- 

 tends to the eighth plate, or a fifth the length of ray, while a fifth 

 series extends to the sixth plate. Between this point and the first 

 plate the plates in each interradial series increase in number from 

 5 to 10. Back of the mouth plates is a pair of intermediate plates,. 



