584 THE VOYAGE OF H.3LS. CHALLENGER. 
Coscinasterias muricata, Verrill, 1871 (1867), Trans. Conn. Acad. Arts and Sci., vol. i. part 2, p. 249. 
Asteracanthion australis, Perrier, 1869, Ann. Sci. Nat., 5e Série, t. xii. p. 220. 
Asterias Jehennesti (Valenciennes, M.S.), Perrier, 1875, Révis. Stell. Mus., p. 47 (Archives de Zool. 
expér., t. iv. p. 311). 
Localities. —Off Port Jackson. Depth and conditions not recorded. 
Station 162. Off East Moncceur Island, Bass Strait. April 2,1874. Lat. 39° 10’ 30” 
S., long. 146° 37’ 0” E. Depth 38 fathoms. Sand and shells. Surface temperature 
63°°2 Fahr. 
20. Asterias (Stolasterias) volsellata, n. sp. (Pl. CVII. figs. 1-4). 
Rays eleven. R=128 mm.; r=10 mm. R<137. Breadth of a ray at the base, 
7mm; breadth about midway between the disk and the extremity, 5 mm. 
Rays elongate and narrow, tapering gradually to the extremity, the outer part being 
very delicate and attenuate. Abactinal surface of the rays slightly arched and faintly 
carinate; lateral walls high and vertical. Disk small, depressed, and well defined, the 
rays readily becoming detached. Interbrachial ares acute. 
The skeletal plates of the rays, which are narrow and delicate, are disposed with great 
regularity. They form a median radial series, a supero-marginal series which bounds the 
abactinal area, and an infero-marginal series which is contingent on the adambulacral 
plates. Between these five regular longitudinal series of plates are transverse bars of 
similar plates at subequal distances apart which form large quadrangular meshes, covered 
with a thin delicate membrane. The plates in the longitudinal series, which stand at the 
place of junction with the transverse bars, may be more or less cruciform, and bear a single 
elongate and very delicate needle-like spine, the longest near the base of the ray measuring 
about 4 mm.; the spinelets are about 4 mm. apart. The base of the spine is invested 
with a short membranous sheath, which is surmounted by a thick, densely crowded wreath 
of forcipiform pedicellariz, the spinelet appearing as if passing through a globular mass 
of these bodies. On the outer part of the ray the abactinal plates become very small and 
quite aborted in character, the transverse bars which stretch from side to side being fre- 
quently the most conspicuous, and then closely resemble the transverse bars of plates 
occurring in Brisinga; the wide intervening spaces covered only with semitransparent 
membrane enhance the striking similarity. At the base of the ray the membrane which 
covers the meshes is punctured with numerous small papule congregated in groups, 
several. groups being present in each mesh. Several rather large, elongate, isolated forfici- 
form pedicellarie are borne upon the membrane, amongst and between the groups of 
papule. There are also a number of very large forficiform pedicellarize, having the jaws 
broad, curved and expanded at the tips, which are armed with several large, interlocking 
denticles ; these comparatively gigantic pedicellarize are generally placed singly at or near 
the base of the-large spinelets, and the frequency of this position leads to the supposition 
