STARFISHES OF THE PHILIPPINE SEAS. 495 



dinal series, joined together at the intervals of the primary plates by 

 transverse ossicles, leaving four series of large, rectangular papular 

 areas. At each node of this skeletal mesh is a sharp spine with a 

 retractile wreath of abundant pedicellariae. The inferomarginal 

 plates abut closely against the adambulacrals. Both species have the 

 curious hand-shaped unguiculate major pedicellariae of conspicuous 

 size, characteristic of the genus very probably. 



Perrier (1894, pi. 8) has given carefully drawn figures of C. 

 parfaiti and C. antonii. The skeleton is the same as that of hnareus 

 and of volsellatvs. It seems reasonable, on account of the small size 

 of Perrier's specimens, to consider them immature. They match 

 very well the immature regenerating rays of volsellatus, which, as 

 noted above, also have the pedicels biserially arranged. 



Coronaster volsellatus has one adambulacral spine, the other species 

 generally 2. In G. parfalti there are 3 spines on the first 5 plates 

 and 2 on the others. C. antonii has the spines " solitary on the major- 

 ity of the plates, but in pairs on certain others among them." I do 

 not think the monacanthid condition of volsellatus of sufficient impor- 

 tance to warrant a generic separation. The new Philippine and 

 Moluccan species, G. halicepus is diplacanthid and is apparently a 

 close relative of volseUa.tus. 



Coronaster is therefore represented in the East Indies by 2 species, 

 and in the Atlantic by 5 nominal forms. 



The family affiliations of Goronaster are somewhat involved. Its 

 only strong Asteriid character is the quadriserial arrangement of the 

 tube feet. Yet the ambulacral plates are not crowded, the pedicel 

 pores being nearly or quite biserial as in the Brisingidae, to which 

 family its strongly brisingoid mouth plates, as prominent as those of 

 Odinia, would also ally it. Its skeleton is more like that of a 

 simplified Pedicellaster than like that of Asterlas, or allied genera. 

 Pedicellaster has mouth plates of the same sort as Goronaster. 

 They are more prominently " adambulacral " than those of any 

 genus of the Asteriidae, even of Goscinasterias, and are nearlj'' or 

 quite as prominent, relatively, as the oral angles in Brisinga. So 

 also in Pedicellaster the ambulacral plates are uncrowded, as in 

 Goronaster, rather brisingoid, and the pedicel pores are in 2 series. 

 As noted above the pedicel pores in large specimens of Goronaster 

 form 2 slightly zigzag rows, but much less pronounced than in small 

 specimens of GoscinasteHas (in the broadest sense), in which group 

 the ambulacrals are quite compressed and crowded. 



On the whole the relationship of Goronaster does not appear to be 

 so close to the Asteriidae as to the Pedicellasteridae, even though one 

 of its species long occupied an undisputed corner in the former 

 family. 



