REPORT ON THE ASTEROIDEA. 291 
The terminal plate is very small and rounded outwardly. 
Young Phase.—A small example from Christmas Harbour, Kerguelen, measuring 
R=20 mm., 7=7°5 mm., presents all the characters of the adult in a remarkable degree. 
The same low truncate uniform granules, forming the same level surface, both on the 
actinal and abactinal areas. There is not the slightest hesitation in saying that this 
example is the young of the species under notice. Its difference from the young of 
Gnathaster meridionalis of the same size is very marked and striking. There are nine- 
teen supero-marginal plates counting from the median interradial line to the extremity. 
There are not more than four to seven granules in the paxille. The armature of the 
adambulacral plates is of the same character as in the adult. The vitreous spine-like 
prolongation of the united mouth-plates is well developed. A single pseudo-pedicellaria, 
conical and pointed, is present on the innermost plate in the interradial area. The 
odd marginal plate is small in the superior series, but that in the inferior series is 
relatively larger than in the adult, here re-entering the margin. 
There is also a young example dredged near Marion Island, in which the rays are slightly 
narrower at the base, and though equally long are rather less attenuate outwardly, and the 
abactinal surface is somewhat less full and baggy. In these slight differences this young 
form resembles the adult specimens from the neighbourhood of Heard Island more closely 
than it does those from Kerguelen. This example is figured on Plate XIX. 
Variations.—The principal variation that I have noted is in some large examples 
from Christmas Harbour, Kerguelen, in which the breadth of the ray at the base is 
greater, and gives a more triangular form to the ray. The flexible and almost baggy 
character of the abactinal surface is also more noticeable, from which [ infer, as well as 
from a less collapsed example, that the form was tolerably thick and puffy over the disk 
when alive. The actinal area is decidedly convex; and when the whole starfish is 
viewed in profile, the narrow double band of marginal plates appears as a slightly nipped- 
together ridge midway between the abactinal and actinal convexities. It is interesting 
to note that in one of these examples the primary interradial plates are distinctly 
observable on the'disk. They are small, oval, slightly convex plates, situated at about 
the same distance from the centre as the large crescentiform plate on the adcentral 
side of the madreporiform body, but are, however, of much smaller size. In one of 
these examples I notice a tendency to lateral compression and truncation at the tip of 
the innermost furrow spines in the adambulacral armature; but not in others: the 
circumstance is therefore only noted as a point affected by variation. 
Colour in aleohol, a bleached dirty ashy or greyish white. 
Localities.—Station 145. Off Marion Island. December 26,1873. Depth 50 fathoms. 
Station 149H. Off Cumberland Bay, Kereueien Island. January 29, 1874. Depth 
127 fathoms. Bottom deposit a greenish volcanic mud. 
Station 150. Between Kerguelen Island and Heard Island. February 2, 1874. Lat. 
