380 BULLETIN 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Of tho eight specimens from Torres Strait in the British Museum seven are 

 brownish yellow, with the cirri deep purple narrowly banded with white at the 

 articulations, and the last is entirely purple. 



Of the 12 specimens from Port Denison in the collection of the Australian Museum 

 one has the cirri XXII, 46, 30 mm. long; in another the cirri are XX, 36-49, 30 mm. 

 long; in a third they are XX11I, 43, 40 mm. long; and in a fourth they are XXII, 

 42-45, 30 mm. long. These and five others closely resemble the type specimen, which 

 also came from Port Denison, and six additional specimens, three of which are large 

 and beautiful examples of the species, in the British Museum. They show no tend- 

 ency toward the curiously abrupt type of synarthrial tubercle or toward the short- 

 segmented proximal pinnules characteristic of the form from the Philippine Islands 

 and Singapore that I have called formosa. Three other large and well-developed 

 specimens from Port Denison in the Australian Museum have the cirri about XX, 

 46-51, from 30 to 37 mm. long. These three all show the abrupt synarthrial tubercles 

 and the short-segmented proximal pinnules of formosa in more or less perfected form. 



One of the Alert specimens from Port Molle in the British Museum is a fine 

 example of the species. The two specimens from Port Molle in the Australian Museum 

 have the cirri about XX, 39-42, 30 mm. long. Both of these specimens have syn- 

 arthrial tubercles resembling those in the type specimen of formosa. 



The two specimens from northwestern Australia in the British Museum are 

 slaty gray, purplish ventrally. 



The three specimens from Western Australia are typical. 



The specimen in the Paris Museum labeled Comatula (Antedon) milberti var. 

 dibrachiata exactly resembles the type specimen in the United States National 

 Museum. The cirri have 26 or 27 segments. 



The specimen from the Danish Expedition to the Kei Islands station 101 has the 

 arms about 100 mm. long. It is flesh colored, with the pinnules and ventral surface 

 deep purple. 



The seven small specimens from the Danish Expedition to the Kei Islands station 

 75 appear to be young examples of this form. The dorsal spines on the cirri of some 

 individuals begin as early as the fourth or fifth segment. 



Reichensperger said that in discoidea the carination on the earlier segments of the 

 lower pinnules is in general more marked than it is in tessellata, although there is 

 individual variation in this feature. The general appearance of the pinnules in 

 cross section is thus somewhat more slender and more rounded in tessellata than it is 

 in discoidea. 



Abnormal specimens. — A 4-rayed individual was secured by the Siboga at station 

 273. The missing ray appears to be the anterior. Except for the absence of one of 

 the rays this example seems to be quite similar to the others from this station. 



In a medium-sized specimen from the Aru Islands described by Reichensperger 

 two pinnules instead of a new arm have regenerated on a stump formed by the breaking 

 ofT of an arm between the fifth and sixth brachials. Reichensperger regards this as 

 proof of equivalent developmental potentiality in arm and pinnule buds. He noted 

 that this peculiarity has already been noticed in Comatella nigra, which is a slip for 

 C. stelligera (see Part 3, p. 106). 



