STARFISHES OF THE PHILIPPINE SEAS. 159 



bearing on the rounded tip a stout, sharp central spine with one on 

 either side, and between them numerous accessory sharp, slender 

 spinules. 



Actinal interradial areas large, but owin<; to the narrowness of 

 rays the plates do not extend beyond the eighth inferomarginal, or 

 about a fourth the length of ray measured along side. They are 

 arranged in not very regular series extending from the adambulacrals 

 to margin, toward which the plates diminish in size. There is an 

 odd interradial series. The plates are externally irregularl}^ po- 

 lygonal to roundish, with a central eminence crowned by a con- 

 spicuous low pedicellaria, similar in structure to those of the abacti- 

 nal surface, but much larger, and composed of from 4 to 8 low, 

 broad, swollen, blunt papillae, surrounded by a circle of several 

 slender spinelets. The pedicellaria resembles, in miniature, the bud 

 of a flower with fleshy petals, except 1 or 2 near the mouth plates, 

 which are pectinate. On the ray the pedicellariae have sometimes 

 slightly longer jaws. The figure will better show the form. Here 

 and there are plates without pedicellariae, capped by a group of 

 divergent slender spinelets. In the small specimen from station 

 5601 the pedicellariae are much fewer. 



Adambulacral plates narrow, being much longer than wide, with a 

 rounded furrow margin bearing 7 or 8 fairly long, bluntly pointed, 

 compressed spines, widened and bladelike at the base, and some- 

 times rather abruptly constricted near the tip, the median spines 

 being slightly the longest and all forming a vertical comb. Close 

 to these on the surface of the plate is an irregular longitudinal 

 series of 6 to 10 cylindrical, pointed spines, of which 1, near center, 

 is much enlarged and subequal to the furrow spines or sometimes 

 longer, while the rest are graduated in size toward either end. But 

 on the outer part of the ray the other spines are abruptly smaller, 

 one-half to two-thirds the length of the larger, and not clearly ar- 

 ranged in a series. Most of the plates bear a prominent pedicellaria 

 with usually 3 jaws (slightly longer than those of interradii) and 

 usually situated at the aboral end of plate. Many -plates bear a 

 second pedicellaria, sometimes slightly smaller than the other, near 

 the middle or the adoral end. The specimen from station 3601 

 seldom has an adambulacral pedicellaria and the number of sub- 

 ambulacral spines is therefore greater (8 to 12). The furrow spines 

 are not widened at the base: perhaps this is an attribute of age. 

 First adambulacral plate somewhat triangular and compressed. 



Mouth plates convex actinally, the combined pair projecting into 

 actinostome for half their length, and broader at outer than at 

 inner end. Furrow spines T, the inner heavy and compressed, and 

 much larger than the adambulacral furrow spines. They are broken 

 in the type, but they decrease in size toward the first adambulacral, 



