WEST INDIAN STARFISHES 147 



wider and their marginal spines and apical spines are fewer and 

 much longer, and more acute ; this also lacks the secondary spines 

 below the inferomarginal one, which are a prominent feature in 

 P. mixius as well as in Cheiraster cchinulntus and C. mirahilis. 

 The arrangement of the papular pores and surrounding convex 

 rounded plates is also characteristic. 



Very common in the West Indies, in 70 to 300 fathoms. 



The type (No. 10,564 Nat. Mus.) and cotypes were taken by 

 the Albatross, but no station number is given. I have seen many 

 others from the West Indies, in the Blake collection. The spec- 

 imen figured on plate xv, figs. 1-1&, is from 126 fathoms, Antilles. 



Pectin ASTER oligoporus (Perrier) Verrill. 



Pontaster oUogoporus Perrier, Exped. Trav. et Talisman, p. 293, 1894, 

 Archaster mirahilis (pars) Perrier, op. cit., p. 259, 1884. 



The description given by Perrier (1894, p. 293) is very brief 

 and mostly comparative, as to P. limhattis Sladen. The type 

 and only specimen was young and came from station 143, Blake. 

 According to Perrier its peculiarities are as follows: 



He states that it is a typical Pontaster, with seven or eight 

 papulffi united in a single group upon the median line, at the 

 base of the rays, and says that according to Sladen 's analytical 

 key it would come next to P. limhatus,^^ but in the new species 

 the jaws are less spinose ; the adambulacral spines are ten to 

 twelve, and form a complete circle around the plate, and the 

 the papulae, instead of being in longitudinal rows, are in two or 

 three irregular transverse rows. Also, there are eight interactin- 

 al plates in a single row. There are no pedicellarias of any kind. 



The type of this species, which I have not seen, was a 

 "unique" specimen from Blake station No. 143, in 150 fathoms, 

 ooze and sand, oif Saba Bank, N. lat. 17° 30' ; W. long. 63° 42' 

 35". 



25 P. limbatus, with which Perrier compared his new species, has no large 

 spines on the disk, it has numerous small secondary spines around the base 

 of the large inferomarginal spine, and the under side of the inferomarg- 

 inal plates is thickly covered with coarse acute spinules ; the upper marginal 

 plates encroach on the disk; the dorsal paxillge have central spines; the 

 adambulacral plates have two or three acute spines on the actinal face ; the 

 papularia are swollen, elliptical. 



