90 THE APODOUS HOLOTHURTANS 



12 and two had 13 tentacles ; each tentacle has 6-10 digits on each side and car- 

 ries 5-15 sense-cups on its inner face. The stone-canal is single, but there are 

 3-7 ijolian vessels. The calcareous ring is narrow and the pieces of which it 

 is composed are scarcely concave on their posterior edges. The anchors 

 are about 230 /^ in length and the plates are about 170 by 115/*; those in 

 the posterior i)art of the body do not seem to differ in size from those 

 anteriorly. The anchor-arms have only 2 or 3 small teeth and the stock, 

 although convex on its outer edges, is not bent in or curved at the 

 ends as in inhcsrens; it is also less finely toothed, us^^ally having only 12-20 

 rather coarse teeth. The particles in the longitudinal muscles are very simi- 

 lar to those in roseola, but the rods in the tentacles are longer and more slender 

 than in that species, slightly curved and a little enlarged and notched. There 

 can be no question that this species is more closely related to inluBrens than 

 to any other member of the genus, which, in view of its geographical isola- 

 tion, is rather remarkable. It differs from ooplax, its nearest geographical 

 neighboi', far more than it does from inhcerens. As yet it is known only from 

 Port Jackson, but it doubtless occurs elsewhere on the Australian coast. It will 

 be interesting to learn its exact geographical range. Stimpson says it occurs 

 "under stones, near low-water mark." 



Leptosynapta ooplax. 

 Synapta ooplax von Marenzeller, 1881, p. 133. Calcareous parts, pi. iv, fig. 1. 



Length. — 70-150 mm., with diameter of about 5 mm. 



Color. — Clear reddish, rosy, or even white. 



Distribution. — Reported from Japan (v. Marenzeller); Lifu, Loyalty Is- 

 lands (Bedford) ; Dutch East Indies, 103 m. (Sluiter); Funafuti (Bedford); 

 Kokotoni, E. Africa (Lampert) ; Zanzibar (Ludwig). Apparently a widely dis- 

 tributed Indo-Pacific species; the inhcerens reported from the Red Sea is very 

 likely ooplax. 



Remarks. — This Synapta is closely related to inhcerens and is clearly the 

 Asiatic representative of that species. In addition to the characters already 

 given, however, there are several other points in which it differs. The plates 

 are wider at the posterior end and contain more numerous and irregularly ar- 

 ranged holes, while the seven large holes of the free end have few teeth along the 

 margin or may even be entirely smooth. Bedford ('99(7) describes the speci- 

 mens from the Loyalty Islands as a new variety (Icevis), but as the characters 

 he assigns (smooth, or nearly smooth, margins to all the holes in the plate, 

 biscuit-shaped granules confined to ambulacra and 1-4 polian vessels) are too 

 variable to be of much weight, there is little advantage in giving the form a 

 name. The specimens from Funafuti, in the National Museum, correspond 

 well to Bedford's description of Iccvis, but strangely enough he does not refer 



