■202 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. $2 



COMASTER COPPINGERI (Bell) 



Station No. 5153; east of Port Dos Amigos, Tawi Tawi ; 49 

 fathoms. 



Two of the specimens have only ten arms. 



Genus COMATULA Lamarck 

 COMATULA PECTINATA (Linnaeus) 



Station No. 5139; between Jolo and Pangasinan Island; 20 

 fathoms. 



Station No. 5142; north of the town of Jolo; 21 fathoms. 



There are some additional specimens without data as to exact 

 locality. 



This species is at first sight very much like the ten-armed Coman- 

 thus cumingii, first described by Professor Miiller from Malacca — 

 so much so, indeed, that I was at first forced to dissect apart the 

 costals of each specimen to be sure of the identification, though I 

 later learned to recognize the species from external characters. In 

 Comanthus cumingii the cirri are proximally rounded with elongate 

 joints, and distally flattened with short joints; this gives the cirri 

 when viewed laterally the appearance of expanding distally ; in 

 Comatula pectinata the cirri are uniform throughout, the joints all 

 subequal, usually not quite so long as broad. As a comparison, it 

 may be said that while the cirri of C. cumingii resemble those of 

 C. rotalaria, those of C. pectinata resemble those of C. Solaris. In 

 C. cumingii the lower pinnules are much elongated, and decrease 

 gradually in length from the first outward; in C. pectinata only the 

 first pinnule is elongated, the second and following being subequal 

 and short ; in the latter, moreover, the first two pinnules, and some- 

 times the third also, are very strongly carinate basally, a feature 

 never found in C. cumingii. In C. pectinata the costals have a shal- 

 low and rounded, though distinct, median furrow, which is quite 

 lacking in C. cumingii, while in the latter the proximal third or half 

 of the arms is disproportionately large and swollen, this region not 

 being enlarged in C. pectinata. 



I have compared the Philippine specimens with one from Java, 

 identified by Dr. Carpenter, and find them identical. Indeed, Car- 

 penter himself mentions the similarity between this specimen and 

 some from Bohol collected by Professor Semper. 



