118 THE ECHINODERMS OF TORRES STRAIT. 
ida?” as the locality. Later he became convinced that the specimens were from the Pacific, 
and Verrill (1869) pointed out that they undoubtedly came from Hawaii. Certainly the 
species is common at the Hawaiian Islands. At Hilo, December 8, 1913, I took a number of 
specimens from under rocks on sand in shallow water; these were large adults, 10 to 15 mm. 
across the disk, with arms 90 to 135 mm. long; the color is very complexly variegated buff, 
brown, and blackish, the darker shades predominating and the arms distinctly banded; the 
bands, however, are neither sharply defined nor regularly spaced. There are similar but 
smaller specimens in the Museum of Comparative Zoélogy from Fiji, in which the ground- 
color is grayish rather than buff, and we also have specimens from the Philippines and one 
from Mauritius which, although not full grown, seem to be porrecta. Furthermore, we have 
specimens from Natal and from near East London, Cape Colony, which differ from typical 
porrecta only in the much coarser scaling and larger radial shields. It may be that this 
South African form should be regarded as a different species, but as very small specimens 
from Hawaii have a relatively coarse scaling, I hesitate at present to give them a distinctive 
name. More material from Mauritius and the African coast is needed before the matter 
can besettled. De Loriol does not list porrecta from Mauritius, and our specimen was origin- 
ally labeled dubia. It must be granted that small specimens of porrecta and large ones of dubia 
are not always to be distinguished at a glance. Aside from the difference in disk-scaling, 
however, which is not always well-marked, the greater width and lesser length of both upper 
and under arm-plates in porrecta is quite distinctive. Matsumoto’s (1917) figures of por- 
recta may well be compared with Savigny’s (1809) of dubia. Matsumoto records porrecta 
from the Riu Kiu Islands and there are also reliable records from Ceylon and the Maldives. 
Merton, however, did not find it at the Aru Islands and it must be rare in the East Indies, 
for the Siboga found only two young specimens, which Koehler (1905) refers doubtfully to 
porrecta. Itis not known from the Torres Strait region nor from anywhere on the Australian 
coast. It was therefore a surprise to find it not rare at Mer, where we took a number of spec- 
imens from crannies in blocks of coral rock or from the sand underneath them, on the 
southwestern reef. ‘These individuals are much lighter colored (pl. 12, fig. 6) than specimens 
from Hawaii, as the buff tint predominates in preserved material. It will be noted that in 
life there was a marked greenish tinge to the disk and the variegation of the arms is made up 
of light brown, blackish, and white. Few specimens show any such symmetrical pattern on 
the disk as the one figured. Two of the specimens taken at Mer resemble those from South 
Africa in one noticeable particular; the arms are strongly tinged with dull purple or 
purplish red. This makes them look quite different from the rest, but I fail to find any 
other peculiarities. The tinge is not nearly so reddish as in the South African specimens 
and is duller. 
Ophionereis semoni. 
Ophiotriton semoni Déderlein. 1896. Jena. Denkschr., 8, p. 288, pl. xv, figs. 8, 8a. 
Ophionereis semoni Koehler. 1905. Siboga Oph. litt., p. 54. 
In my Catalogue of Recent Ophiurans (1915a) I listed specimens of Ophionerets dubia 
in the Museum collection from Torres Strait and Queensland. I included also under 
the same name a brittle-star from Japan. Matsumoto (1917) has suggested that the Jap- 
anese specimen is not dubia but a young Ophiocrases marktanneri. This suggestion led to a 
reéxamination of all the material at hand supposed to be dubia, with the result that I think 
Matsumoto is correct and my specimen from Japan had best be referred to Ophiocrases, 
although the generic character is very faintly indicated. Furthermore, the specimens from 
Torres Strait which I had identified as dubia agree exactly with O. semoni, and I therefore 
concluded those two species were identical. I was further influenced to this decision by 
Koehler’s identification as semoni of all those Siboga ophionereids which I should have called 
dubia, and by Bell’s identification as dubia of the Alert’s ophionereids from Torres Strait. 
But on critical comparison of dubia from Mombasa and the Red Sea with specimens from 
