172 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN 



lat. 28° 47' 30'' in 24 and 27 fathoms. Jamaica (Clark) ; Do- 

 minica I. (coll. A. H. Verrill). 



ASTROPECTEN ANTILLENSIS Llltken. 



Astropecten antillensis Liitken, Vidensk. Meddelels., 1859, p. 47. Verrill, 

 op. cit., p. 343, 1867, Perrier, Eevision, op. cit., p. 282, 1876 (de- 

 scription.) 



According to Liitken 's original diagnosis his types had the fol- 

 lowing characters : 



Dorsal marginal spines biserial in the adult; the inner series 

 varies in number, largest near the proximal angle of the ray. 

 Inferomarginal spines two, slender; the ventral side of these 

 plates is covered with slender spines. Adambulacral spines six- 

 biseriate, median ones larger; outer median one flattened. His 

 specimens varied from 22™™ to 115™™ in diameter. 



Perrier states that the inferomarginal plates are sparsely cov- 

 ered with small, scale-like spinules, and also have a row, trans- 

 verse to the ray, of larger secondary spines. The adambulacral 

 plates bear two rows of spines, about five in each, the middle 

 spine in each being somewhat larger. 



It is very closely allied to A. duplicatus, and may prove to be 

 only a local variety of that variable species. To determine this 

 needs a larger series than I have seen. It is also closely related 

 to A. braziliensis, but apparently less so than to A. duplicatus. 



From the latter it differs in having more slender and not so 

 flat marginal spines ; more slender secondary spines and spinules 

 on the inferomarginals, and in the more slender adambulacral 

 spines, which appear to be more numerous, more slender, and 

 arranged in two rows; the larger spine of the second row is not 

 so much enlarged as in the related species. 



According to Perrier, this species becomes 120™™ in diameter. 

 In his larger example all the superomarginal plates have one 

 spine ; on the first two plates it is on the upper margin ; on those 

 further out it is placed nearer the outer margin ; some proximal 

 plates have a second small or rudimentary spine on the inner 

 margin, in line with those on the two interradial plates, thus 

 showing a tendency to form two rows. 



Perrier, from an examination of the types, considered A. bra- 

 ziliensis distinct from this. He states that the latter differs in 



