223 



the younger. Accordiiij^ly I lie remarkable absorption of the plates and 

 spines, supposed by llie authors to take place during the progress of 

 developnienl, does not take place at all, the facts being quite the inverse. 

 The peculiar stage represented in fig. 1 of Koehler's work, showing 

 what appears like two filamenls at the "mouth" is only a later stage of 

 development, wheit' tiu- Brachiolarian arms have been almost absorbed, 

 the other arms comjiletely so. 



In 1915 (iemmilP) described a new Asteroid-larva, Brachiolavut liiher- 

 nica, characterized by the point of the tSrachioIarian arms being wholly 

 covered with small papillfe, and through the presence of a row of small 

 papilhe on each side of the sucking disk, which latter is transversely elong- 

 ated. The single specimen observed (taken in the Atlantic, 50 miles to the 

 W. of Ireland, in a vertical haul from 2165 meters) was in an advanced 

 stage of metamoiphosis, the larval arms being reduced to short cylindrical 

 prominences, l)ul (iemmill thinks it very probable that in its younger 

 stages it has the shape of a typical ISrachiolaria larva. The characters of 

 this larva exactly agree with those of Siellosphiera mirabilis pointed out 

 here, and the figures of the larva given by Gem mill also recall the .S7d- 

 losphiera to such a degree that I cannot doubt that it is really the same 

 larva. It is true that (Iemmill does not say anything about its being 

 six-rayed, as is Slellophxra. Hut his Fig. 1 shows, besides the five young 

 arms, a sixth prominence, which is indicated in the explanation of the 

 figure only as a "prominence of soft tissues in the aboral notch." I can 

 hardly doubt that this is really the beginning 6th arm. (The skeleton, 

 which would have settled the question, was, unfortunately, dissolved). 



Thus, I would think, the "Slcllopluera mirabilis" has been definitely 

 deprived of its remarkableness and been reduced to a, [)rol)ably, quite 

 ordinary Brachiolaria in an advanced stage of metamorphosis. The 

 suggestion of Koehlei- iS: Vaney that it belongs to a deep-sea Asteroid 

 was apparently for a great part due to its supposed fundamental difl'erence 

 from the typical ])elagic larvit of littoral Asteroids, 'fhe larva> were taken 

 in vertical hauls with open nets, from .'^UOU m. to the surface: there is thus 

 — as Koehler & Vaney of course admit — no certainty about the (ie|)th 

 in which these larVcT were taken. .\s also other larva^ belonging iinil()ui)le(l- 

 ly to lilloiiil f",chin()(leiins, have Iteen observed far away from the coasts 

 (see below, the chajjleion the geographical distribution of the larva'), there 

 seems thus far to be no special reason for regarding the 'SlcUopha'nr as 

 the larva of a deep-.sea Asteroid. Still it is possible that it was really taken 

 in greater depths, and if we look up the forms of Starfishes to which it 



') .lames I-", (i I'liniiill. On a new brachiatc Asteroid larva and on Ilie advanred Bipin- 

 naria ol l.iiidia riliaris (I'hilippi) Gray. Proc. R. Phys. See. Hdinliurtili. XIX. p. U>1. 



