140 BULLETIN 76, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



having robust, subcylindrical, blunt, or even slightly claviform, subcapitate ones 

 (forma biordinata). In between these are gradations. In addition, the form of 

 the ray differs greatly in response to the degree of inflation at time of death, but 

 there is also considerable difference in the actual stoutness of the ray, which is nor- 

 mally rather slender in life and contracts greatly in alcohol or formalin. In the 

 region of Vancouver Island most all the known variations are found and the greatest 

 extremes are exhibited by two specimens, one from low tide at Port Renfrew, on the 

 Straits of Fuca; the other (forma leptostyla) from 100 fathoms in the same straits. 

 (PI. 67, figs. 2 and 5; pi. 69, figs. 1,3; see also pi. 70, fig. 2, 125 fathoms.) 



The type of Asterias JcoeMeri is undoubtedly a slender spined form as shown by 

 de Loriol's figure. His specimen was dried without first being hardened. I have 

 almost its double from Departure Bay, Vancouver Island. The type was taken 

 at Saanich Inlet, on the east, or sheltered, side of Vancouver Island between Victoria 

 and Departure Bay (Nanaimo). In my specimen the abactinal integument soft- 

 ened before drying so that it collapsed, the plates becoming unnaturally jammed 

 together with their spines variously misplaced. In such a mummy the ray is very 

 narrow and shrunken and entirely unlike a well-preserved specimen. Verrill gives 

 a copy of de Loriol's figure. (1914, pi. 75, figs. 3, 3a-c.) 



I have selected as a good representative of the type forma a specimen from 

 station 4202, Queen Charlotte Sound, off Fort Rupert, Vancouver Island, British 

 Columbia, 36 to 25 fathoms. I have collected practically identical specimens at 

 lowest spring tides, Departure Bay, British Columbia. This is sufficiently near Saa- 

 nich Inlet to answer the practical purposes of a type-locality. 



In the specimen from station 4202 (pi. 68, fig. 2; pi. 71, figs. 1-3) R = 210 mm.; 

 r 21mm.; R = 10r. Rays slightly inflated above base, well rounded and not pentagonal; 

 disk convex. Abactinal spines relatively slender (pi. 67, fig. 4) but strong, slightly 

 tapered, the end swollen a trifle and blunt. Some of the spines have a few terminal 

 shallow furrows (drill type). The carinal spines are proximally4 or 5 mm. long and 

 each carinal plate normally carries a spine. On either side are two or three very 

 irregular dorsolateral series of spines well-spaced proximally but becoming more 

 crowded and a little more regular distally where the wreaths of pedicellariae touch. 

 Here three dorsolateral series can be counted. The dorsolateral spines are obviously 

 more widely spaced than the carinals or marginals. Thick wreaths of crossed 

 pedicellariae attached to a tough sheath surround the abactinal spines. 



Supermarginal spines form a very regular series which curves upward proxi- 

 mally to meet the corresponding series of adjacent ray at abactinal entrance to inter- 

 brachial, or axillary, channel. At base of ray each plate usually carries a spine; 

 then only alternate plates on median third of ray; and finally, on outer part, each plate 

 is generally armed. There are 80 to 85 spines in a series (varying with age; in a 

 specimen with R 65 mm., 45 marginals) and each bears a thick wreath of pedicellariae. 



Separated from superomarginals by an intermarginal channel about as broad 

 as the length of a supermarginal spine are two series of inferomarginal spines on the 

 actinolateral border of the ray, these paralleled by an equally regular series of actinal 

 spines, which extends in grown specimens five-sixths the length of ray, all three 

 with half-wreaths of pedicellariae on the outer side. These spines, which form reg- 

 ular transverse combs of three, increase in size toward the outer, and their form is 

 rather variable proximally where they may be clavate with compressed channeled tips, 

 or in large specimens gouge-shaped, or swollen with two or three broad channels, the 



