408 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
HAsTERN ARCHIPELAGO: One species between the parallels of 0° and 20° S. 
Leiaster speciosus, from Flores, and extending into the Pacific. 
Paciric: Two species between the parallels of 30° N. and 30° 8. 
Leiaster teres, from California. Leiaster speciosus, from the Fiji 
Islands, and extending into the Hastern Archipelago. 
8. Bathymetrical range: All the species appear to be confined to shallow water. 
y. Nature of the Sea-bottom: Leiaster speciosus on Coral reefs. 
Chorological Synopsis of the Species herein mentioned. 
Ocean. Range in Fathoms. Nature of the Sea-bottom. 
ee 
Letaster speciosus . : : Pacific. Shallow water. Coral reefs. 
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1. Levaster speciosus, v. Martens. 
Leiaster speciosus, v. Martens, 1866, Archiv f. Naturgesch., Jahrg. xxxii., Bd. i. p. 70. 
Locality.—Kandavu, Fiji Islands. On the reefs. 
femarks.—The form which I have referred to this species is very nearly allied to 
Levaster leachii, Gray ; indeed the characters are almost identical. The rays, however, 
are broader, and pedicellarize are present as in von Martens’ species, but not nearly so 
numerous as in his type. 
The skin which covers the whole of the animal in this species is remarkably thick and 
leathery ; and Dr von Martens informs me that, in the case of his example from Flores, 
it was slimy and disagreeable to the touch when the animal was alive. 
On a few of the inner series of spinelets on the adambulacral plates, on the inner 
part of the furrow, a slight trace of channelling may be detected here and there, but it is 
so faint that it has almost the appearance of having been obliterated by growth. 
Genus Linckia, Nardo. 
Linkia, Nardo, De Asteriis, Oken’s Isis, 1834, p. 717. 
Ophidiaster (pars), Miiller and Troschel, Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. Berlin, April 1840, 
p- 103. 
Linckia, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., Dec. 1840, vol. vi. p. 284. 
Acalia (subgen.), Gray, Ann, and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1840, vol. vi. p. 285. 
This well-known and essentially tropical genus presents a wide area of distribution, 
but is not known to extend beyond the 40th parallel north and the 30th parallel south 
of the Equator. Notwithstanding its ereat dispersion the genus maintains a remarkable 
uniformity of facies, and exhibits an extraordinarily small amount of morphological 
plasticity. 
‘oe 
7 ve 
