ASTKROIDEA OF NORTH PACIFIC AND ADJACENT WATERS FISHER. 327 



The midnidiivl row of paxillset is clearly distinguishable from the rest, that is those 

 between the niidradial uud mai<iinal paxiilu', being relatively smaller than in pap- 

 posus. The paxillar spinelets are long, longer relatively than in most specimens 

 of papposus, and the actinal spines are all 'long. The marginal j>lates arc very 

 prominent. Furrow spines four; supcradambulacral spines five or si.x, as a rule. 

 In general appearance this variety has a more open aliactinal skeleton than most 

 specimens of typical j^apposus, and the slendcmess of the pnxillje gives a different 

 facies, which is perhaps better appreciated from a comparison of figures. Stations 

 4787, 4788, 4791 , 4792, 2847, and othera. (PI. 94, figs. 2, 3.) 



Practically the same variations are present in specimens all the way south to 

 Oregon and Washington, as, for instance, from stations 2848, 286.5, 2806, 2874, 

 2877, 3051 , 344.5, 34.59, 3461 , 4286. The southernmost examples (2874, 30.51 , 34,59, 

 3461) have the variation very well marked. The abactinal skeleton is wide meshed 

 and the paxillse tall and slender, there being fewer than in t^-pical papposus. The 

 midradial paxilla; are sometimes, though not always, as large as the marginals, and 

 are distinctly larger than the dorsolaterals. The actinal spines are long and slender, 

 the adambulacral plates having three or four furrow spines, and four to six or 

 seven in the actinal series. Mouth plates with nine to twelve marginal and two 

 to four suboral spines. If this variety is compared with A, the contrast is of 

 course very striking. In many particvdurs typical papposu.s is about intermediate 

 between the extremes. 



Type-locality. — "Habitat in O. Europteo ct Asiatico." (Linnteus.) 

 Distribution. — Circumpolai* through Bering Straits, into Bering Sea, thence 

 south along the west coast of North .Vmerica to Washington; on the Asiatic side 

 to the Sea of Okhotsk. Along the east coast of North America, from Newfoundland 

 and Labrador south to about 40° north latitude; northward to Davis Strait and 

 Smith Sound, the northernmost point being reached in Discovery Bay; westward 

 to Assistance Bay in Barrow Strait, tiience to Point Barrow; eastward to Green- 

 land, Jan Mayen, Spitzbergen, northward to about 79J°. South along the Scan- 

 dinavian coast to the coast of Deiunark, Holland, and Belgium, and to the Faroe 

 Channel, Scotland, England, and Ireland, reaching the southern limit in the western 

 part of the channel (hit. 4S° 30' N.). From Finmark eastward through Barents Sea 

 to the ifurman coast, thence to the Kara Sea and eastward to the Gulf of Khatanga 

 Oong. 113° 30' E.) on the Siberian coast. (Atlantic data from Ludwig, Fauna 



Arctica.) • mi. i 



Specimens eramined.— One hundred and eighty-six. The letters refer to the 



varieties mentioned in the preceding discussion. 



