494 BULLETIN 100, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The family Pedicellasteridae, if these views are correct, would 

 consist of the subfamily Pedicellasterinae with Pedicellaster^ Lytas- 

 ter^ and Gastraster^ and of the Labidiasterinae with Ldbidiaster^ 

 Coronaster, and Bathhunaster. 



Genus CORONASTER Perrier. 



Coronaster Pekkiee, Ann. sci. nat., art. 8, 1885, p. 13. Type, C. parfaiti 

 Perrier, 1894, p. 92, pi. 8.— Veerill, 1915, p. 31.— Fishee, 1917a, p. 26. 



Stolasterias (subgenus) part Sladen, 1889, p. 584. 



Heterasterias Verrili,, 1914a, p. 46. Type, Asterias {Stolasterias) volsel- 

 lata Sladen. 



The generic term as here used is in an extended sense, including 

 Sladen's Asterias volsellata and hence the genus Heterasterias Ver- 

 rill, founded upon that species. 



Coronaster^ as formerly understood, comprised the following nomi- 

 nal species: G. 'parfaiti Perrier, the type, from the Cape Verde 

 Islands ; G. antonii Perrier, a very immature specimen from Morocco ; 

 C. l>riareus (Verrill), from off the southern Atlantic coast of the 

 United States ; G. hisfinosus Ives, locality unknown, perhaps identi- 

 cal with hriareus; G. octoradiatus (Studer), from South Georgia 

 Island. 



I have compared a specimen of Goronaster hriareus from 90 

 fathoms. Gulf stream, south of Key West, with the examples of G, 

 volsellatus {=^ Asterias volsellata) listed in this report. In my speci- 

 men of hriareus 'the tube feet are crowded and quadriserial, or ar- 

 ranged in what one might prefer to call two crowded zigzag series, 

 inasmuch as the pores remain biserial, or nearly so. Professor 

 Verrill (1915, p. 31), in the most recent diagnosis of Goro7iaster, 

 writes that the tube feet are biserial (as, indeed, they are in the 

 small type and in small specimens of hriareus). This character is 

 determined by age. Even in the very small G. antonii^ as mentioned 

 by Perrier (1894, p. 9G, pi. 8, fig. 2(7), the pedicels are incipiently 

 quadriserial on a part of the ray. In full-sized specimens of G. 

 volsellatus the tube feet are quadriserial, or biserial at the tip and 

 base and quadriserial throughout the greater part of the ray. In 

 small regenerating rays of volsellatus the pedicels are biserial, and 

 these small rays correspond exactly to the rays of immature speci- 

 mens of other species. 



Furthermore, the highly characteristic skeleton of volsellatus is 

 nearly exactly duplicated, with minor specific differences, by that of 

 hriareus. This skeleton, which holds good also for G. parfaiti and G. 

 antonii. as figured by Perrier (1894, pi. 8), consists of slender-lobed 

 plates, joined by more or less elongate connecting ossicles in such a 

 way as to form a median radial, and two marginal regular longitu- 



