216 A. E. Verrill — lievision Ge7iera and Species of Starfishes. 



Prionaster elegans Ver., sp. uov. 



Plate XXVII. Figures 4, 4a, 46, 4e. 



Disk small ; sides high and vertical, evenly incurved ; rays high 

 and nearly square at base, tapering regularly to the slender tips. 



Radii as 1 : 5. Greater radius, 70"'" ; lesser, 14™™. 



The marginal plates are oblong and much higher than long on the 

 disk, but gradually become squarish on the rays. The upper and 

 lower are exactly coincident, so that the vertical sutures are contin- 

 uous. Their sides are nearly perpendicular and they encroach only 

 a short distance on the disk, but at the middle of the rays each 

 series is about as' wide as the actinal area ; distally, near the tips of 

 the rays, they are separated only by a single row of very small 

 paxillge. The distal plates bear groups of small spaced granules 

 near the upper end. Each of the upper ones, except on the distal 

 third of the rays, bears a small, movable, tapered, acute spine at the 

 upper angle ; those at the base of the rays are longer than the rest. 

 Some of the lower marginal plates of the rays have a similar, but 

 smaller, spine at the lower angle and near the distal edge of the 

 plate ; most of the interradials have also a small cluster of minute 

 granules near the lower end. All the marginal plates are bordered 

 by a very regular and even series of small spinules webbed together 

 to their tips. Those of the upper plates are much more numerous, 

 finer and closer, and evenly pectinate ; they nearly touch across the 

 grooves. Those of the lower plates stand a. little apart and are more 

 divergent, about half as many in the same space as on the upper 

 plates, and very similar to those between the actinal jDlates. The 

 aj)ical plate is large, prominent, oblong, with the inner end acute- 

 angled. 



The actinal plates are irregular in size and form, but mostly have 

 curved outlines ; they are partially concealed by a thin membrane, 

 and manj^ of them bear a very small subcentral spinule. All are 

 bordered on that side next the fasciolated grooves by a row of 

 appressed, slender, webbed spinules, which nearly or quite meet 

 across the grooves ; the latter are continuous with the grooves 

 between the marginal plates and with those between and back of 

 the adambulacrals. The actinal areas are not large and extend to 

 about the eighth adambulacral. The median odd series consists of 

 two closely united rows of about six each, the distal ones becoming 

 very small. The next series contains a row of five plates and one of 

 three similar plates; this series corresponds to the second and third 

 adambulacrals. The next series, corresponding nearly with the 



