250 • 



Bartlett. This locality is inferred from their being packed with 

 other specimens of that region. 



One of the most common species of the Carolina coast, judg- 

 ing from the numbers of them collected by Mr. Stimpson, is 

 Ophiolepis elongata (Ophiura elongaia Say.) Adhering to 

 these, commonly on the lower surface, are found many indivi- 

 duals of a minute species, (the second of the two mentioned at 

 the commencement of this paper,) which is referred with some 

 doubt to the genus Ophiolepis. The species may be called 



O. UNCINATA Ayres. 



Disk of the largest about one twentieth of an inch in diameter, 

 smooth, covered with a few large scales, commonly one in the 

 centre surrounded with five or six others. The pairs of plates, 

 usually found above the origin of the rays, are not discernible. 



The rays are a litde more than one tenth of an inch long, so 

 that the animal, expanded, covers a breadth of three tenths. 

 The dorsal and inferior plates have about the same form and 

 size. They are imbricated with the lateral, so as to be in a 

 degree covered by them. Their exposed portion is rounded on 

 the outer border, pointed on the opposite. The lateral plates 

 cover the greater part of the ray, meeting both above and be- 

 neath. Each bears one or two short, sharp spines or hooks, 

 which are curved backward. 



The plates, separating the bases of the rays beneath, are 

 broadly ovate. Those forming the border of the mouth are 

 oblong, tapering, perfectly smooth. 



Should this even prove to be an immature type, it can yet 

 scarcely be the young of any previously established species, and 

 the description will still be of service. The absence of teeth 

 on the mouth-plates, and the peculiar form of the lateral ray- 

 spines would scarcely place this species under Ophiolepis, but 

 as it approaches that genus most nearly, it is perhaps better in 

 the present state of our knowledge concerning it, to class it there. 



Mr. C. J. Sprague exhibited a specimen of Arauja seri- 

 cofera, and read a description of the structure by which 



