96 THE ECHINODERMS OF TORRES STRAIT. 
Actinolateral plates in only about 3 series, each with a group of 3 to 5 very thorny 
spinelets, which may form a single series or be in 2 series or in an irregular cluster. Adam- 
bulacral armature in 2 series, a furrow set of 4 or 5, and a subambulacral group of 3 to 5; 
near base of ray the furrow spinelets are wide and blunt (relatively) but they become nar- 
rower, more pointed, and more thorny distally; the subambulacral group on the proximal 
plates is usually of 3 rather slender spinelets, but they increase distally in number, size, 
and thorniness, so that near the tip of the ray they predominate over the furrow spinelets. 
Oral plates rather large and keeled, bare except for a single short, curved, crowded series 
on the keel, of about 3 thorny suboral spines, the most proximal largest; marginal oral 
spines 6 to 8 on each plate, very conspicuous, the innermost pair nearly or quite a milli- 
meter long, flattened, blunt, wider at tip than at base; the following spines closely appressed 
side by side, successively shorter, narrower, and more pointed. 
Color in life green, prettily variegated with white and rusky, with traces of red and 
yellow along the margins. Alcohol changes the greens to red and soon bleaches the speci- 
men altogether. Dry specimens are yellow-brown—‘‘museum color,’ as it has been called! 
Holotype, M. C. Z. No. 2300; crevice in a coral fragment, reef-flat, Mer, Murray 
Island, Torres Strait, October 6, 1913. 
Only 7 specimens of this pretty little Asterina were found, so it can not be considered 
common even at Mer. It was supposed, because of its obvious autotomy and large number 
of rays, to be A. wega Perrier, but comparison with specimens of what I take to be wega 
from Mauritius show it is not that species. It may be mentioned in passing that these 
Mauritius asterinas agree with Perrier’s original description (1869) better than with the 
later one (1875), for they have, as a rule, 1 spinelet on each adambulacral plate. At Hilo, 
Hawaii, I collected 2 little Asterinas, each with 6 rays, which are unquestionably of the 
same section of the genus as anomala and wega, for the indications of autotomy are obvi- 
ous. Neither specimen is large enough to satisfy me that it is adult, but the characters of 
the larger (R =6 mm.) are sufficiently well defined to show that it is not wega, nor do I 
think it can be properly referred to anomala. Until more abundant and more certainly 
adult material is obtained, however, this Hawaiian species may remain nameless. 
Asterina burtonii. 
Asterina burtonit Gray. 1840. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 6, p. 289. 
Asteriscus cepheus Miiller and Troschel. 1842. Sys. Ast., p. 41. 
Asterina cephea de Loriol. 1885. Mem. Soc. Phys. Hist. Nat. Genéve, 29, No. 4, p. 69; pl. xxi, figs. 1-5. 
(Plate 6, Figure 2.) 
The abandoning of Gray’s name for this sea-star seems to me quite unjustifiable, 
even though the type specimen is lost, for in my judgment the original diagnosis is unmis- 
takable when considered in connection with the locality given. I do not know of any other 
Asterina of the western Indian Ocean with which there can be any confusion, and I have 
not the least doubt in my mind as to what Asterina Gray had in hand when he described 
burtoniz. Under such circumstances I can use no later name, even if it is accompanied by 
a fuller diagnosis. 
The specimens of burtonti that I found at Mer are not perfectly typical, for there are 
usually more than 3 spinelets on the actinal plates, but the species is so variable in the 
details of its spinulation I feel no hesitation in referring them to this widespread Indo- 
Pacific form, known from Mozambique, Zanzibar, and the Red Sea on the west to the 
Philippines and Torres Strait and far eastward into the Pacific. There are specimens in 
the Museum of Comparative Zoélogy from the Gilbert Islands, ‘‘Baker’s Island” (pre- 
sumably the island of that name near the 174th parallel on the equator) and ‘“ Barkly 
Island” (presumably in the Paumotus!). The smallest specimen found at Mer was nearly 
