112 BULLETIN 88, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



The illustration of Asterias antiquata Locke referred to above by- 

 Meek is very poor, and yet it seems to be the same species which 

 the latter described as P. granulosus Hall = P. spedosus Meek. 

 This, however, can not now be established since the whereabouts 

 of Locke's specimen is unknown. Both specimens are from Cin- 

 cinnati and are of about the same size. Hall comments on this 

 species (1870) as follows: 



"This species was noticed by Dr. Locke, as cited above, but with- 

 out specific description, and expressing a doubt whether it was or 

 was not identical with the Asterias antiqua of Troost. The figure 

 would indicate a distinct species from that of Dr. Troost." 



PROMOPAL^ASTER GRANULOSUS (Hall). 



Palxaster granulosa Hall, Twentieth Rep. N. Y. State Cab. Nat. Hist., 1868, 



p. 285. 

 Palxaster granulosus Hall, Twentieth Rep. N. Y. State Cab. Nat. Hist., rev. ed., 



1868=1870, p. 327. 



Original description. — "Body of medium size, five rayed; rays a 

 little more than twice as long as their breadth at base; obtusely- 

 rounded at the extremities. Upper surface of rays composed of 

 numerous very small tuberculose or subspinose plates; the madre- 

 poric tubercle large, quite distinct, situated laterally at the base of 

 two of the rays. Under surface of rays composed of a [infrajmarginal 

 range of small tuberculose plates, about 25 on each side in a ray- 

 measuring one inch and a quarter from base to apex; and an inner 

 (adambulacral) range of smaller plates, of which about 42 or 43 can 

 be counted on the same ray; the terminal or oral [armature] plates 

 are small, elongate, subtriangular, in pairs at the base of the adjacent 

 rays. Ambulacral areas composed of a double series of short, broad, 

 shghtly curved poral plates (ossicula), each plate marked by a sharply 

 elevated ridge along its entire breadth, commencing on the one plate 

 at the outer posterior angle and terminating on the anterior inner 

 angle, and running in the opposite direction on the adjacent plate. 

 When the outer ridged surface of the poral plate is ground away, 

 the narrow openings or pores are visible between the plates, apparently 

 in two rows in each series, making four ranges of pores in each ambu- 

 lacral area. (The marginal ranges of pores are obscure, and may 

 only be apparent [there is probably an error here in regarding the 

 imier openings as podial openings].) On the under surface, near the 

 bases of the rays, the tubercles bear short spines some of which are 

 still in place." 



"Some figures of a Palxaster, closely allied to or identical vnth this 

 one, from Cincinnati, Ohio, have been circulated by the Natural 

 History Society of that place, under the name of Asterias primordialis; 

 but no description of it has ever been published, so far as I know, nor 



