WEST INDIAN STAEFISHES 41 



where they become very small. Most of them bear one small 

 conical spine, close to the outer adambulacral. The outlines and 

 sutures of these plates are usually concealed by dermis; some- 

 times proximally, a number of them are spineless and visible, 

 when they appear as narrow, flat, oblong, transverse ossicles, ex- 

 tending between the inferomarginal and adambulacral plates. 

 The adambulacral plates have two small furrow-spines, one 

 above the other. The most interior one is the smaller; on the 

 outer margin, and not quite in line with the others, there is a 

 somewhat larger and stouter but small, conical spine. Those on 

 consecutive plates are webbed together for about half their height 

 and also webbed to the upper one of the furrow-series, forming 

 a continuous row. 



The madreporic plate is prominent, flattish, wart-like, covered 

 with thin, rough, irregular ridges and points. 



Alcoholic and well dried specimens of this species are usually 

 purplish brown, but many, when dried, become yellowish brown. 

 In life it is reddish brown. 



This species is abundant on the west coast of Florida, at Tam- 

 pa Bay, Egmont Key, and many other localities. 



In the Yale Museum, besides the types from Egmont Key, 

 there are specimens received from the U. S. Nat. Mus. from the 

 following places: Pine Key, Cedar Key, Goodland Point, and 

 Marco, W. Florida; Gulf of Mexico, S. of Alabama (stations 

 2370, 2373, 2387, steamer Albatross), in 23 to 32 fathoms. I 

 have seen no West Indian specimens nor any from East Florida. 



This is more nearly allied to E. 'braziliensis than to either of 

 the other species. 



It has many more rows of spines than E. senilis, and many 

 more spines in each row, while the spines are also much smaller 

 and more slender. The rays are also longer and more slender. 



E CHIN ASTER BRAZILIENSIS M. and Tr. 



Echinaster braziliensis M. and Trosch. (pars), Syst. Aster., p. 22 (not the 

 figure, pi. i, fig. 4). Liitken, op. cit., p. 9 [67], 1859; p. 284 [60], 

 1871. Verrill, Notes on Eadiata, pp. 343, 368, 1868. Perrier, Archiv, 

 Zool. Erp., vol. iv, p. 367, 1875. E. Eathbun, Trans. Conn. Acad Sci., 

 vol. V, p. 148, 1879. Ludwig, Mem, Cour. Acad. Eoy. Belg., xliv, p. 7, 

 1882. Ives Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. PhOad., for 1890, pp. 324, 326, pi. 

 viii, figs. 16-18, 1890. 



( ?) Othilia brasiliensis A. Agassiz, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. i, p. 308, 

 1869 (Florida, shore to six fathoms.) 



