NO. 1944. yEW GENERA AND SPECIES OF STARFISHES— FISHER. 629 



being armed with an inconspicuous, short, appressed, slender, sharp 

 spine extending nearly to end of ray; inferomarginals narrower on 

 outer two-thirds of ray than superomarginals and covered with 

 conical granules ; in addition to these, proximall}'' 6 to 10 and distally 



2 to 4 slender, sharp, appressed spines, either scattered or in 1 or 2 

 transverse series; abactinal plates paxilliform, with compact sub- 

 hexagonal crowns, very regularly arranged .in series parallel to the 

 radial; an average radial plate with 9 to 12 roundish or slightly 

 polygonal, spaced, central granules and 20 to 25 flattened, truncate, 

 oblong, or slightly tapered, smaller peripheral ones, these numbers 

 increasing on the distal carinal plates and decreasing on the dorso- 

 laterals; papulas distributed all over dorsal surface as far distad as 

 there are more than 1 series of abactinal plates; actinal interme- 

 diate plates, each with an appressed, sharp, spine; adambulacral 

 plates with an angular but not very salient furrow margin bearmg 6 

 or 7 short, blunt spines; subambulacral spmes 1 or 2, sharp, appressed, 

 surrounded by 5 to 8 elongate, subconical granules, in addition to 



3 or 4 on outer margin, and 3 to 6 on each transverse margin, the 

 latter often forming a fasciolate pedicellaria over the suture. 



Type.— Cat. No. 30538, U.S.N.M. 



Type-locality. — Station 5113, Balayan Bay, Southern Luzon, 159 

 fathoms, on a bottom of dark green mud. 



This curious genus bears about the same relation to Paragonaster 

 that Prionaster bears to Goniopecten or Pectinidiscus to Ctenodiscus. 

 In all the characters except those mentioned in the diagnosis it is 

 essentially similar to Paragonaster. 



Genus ROSASTER Perrier. 



Rosaster Perrier, Exped. sci. du Travailleur et du Talisman, 1894, p. 386.— Type, 

 Pentagonaster alexandri Perrier. 



Nereidaster Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad., vol. 10, 1899, p. 186. — Type, Nymph- 

 aster symbolicus Sladen. 



I have for some tune suspected that Rosaster alexandri Perrier 

 might be closely allied to the section of NympJiaster called Nereidaster 

 by Verrill in 1899 (type, NympTiaster symbolicus Sladen). In 1906 

 I raised Nereidaster to generic rank, including in it a species, Nerei- 

 daster howersi, which proves not to be congeneric mth the type of 

 Nereidaster. It is this misconception of Nereidaster which I incor- 

 porated in a key to the genera of Goniasterid^e in the Asteroidea of 

 the North Pacific, page 170. 



I made a cursory examination of Rosaster alexandri several years 

 ago and thought I found rudimentary superambulacral plates. These 

 are not j^resent. What I saw, on closer examination, proves to be 

 curious spmy outgrowths from the lower end of the small ambulacral 

 ossicles. The arrangement of the gonads in this species as well as 



