168 THE ECHINODERMS OF TORRES STRAIT. 
Thyone sacellus. 
Stolus sacellus Selenka. 1867. Zeit. f. w. Zool., 17, p. 355, pl. xx, figs. 115, 116. 
Thyone sacella von Marenzeller. 1881. Verh. Zool.-bot. Ges. Wien, 31, p. 134. 
With that brevity which always gives him so much satisfaction, but which is often 
a source of exasperation to others, Bell (1884) lists this Indian Ocean species from Torres 
Strait without a word of comment. Théel (1886) thinks that sacellus is identical with 
Stimpson’s buccalis, and if that is so, Bell’s identification needs no emendation. If the 
two species are distinct, however, it is probable that the specimen Bell calls sacellus is 
really buccalis. 
Phyllophorus proteus. 
Bell. 1884. Alert Rep., p. 150, pl. ix, figs. F, F’. 
As this species does not seem to have been met with since the original description, 
I am glad to be able to give some additional facts about it, based on a type-specimen in 
the Museum of Comparative Zoélogy received from the British Museum in 1907. The 
specimen is in excellent condition, about 30 mm. long and 15 mm. in diameter; the ante- 
rior end is strongly introverted, and it is easily estimated that in life the extended animal 
was probably 60 mm. or more in length and 10 to 12 mm. thick. The tentacles are 20 in 
number and arranged in the manner typical for the genus (see Ohshima, 1912). The 
calcareous ring is not as given by Bell, for unfortunately he has apparently described and 
figured it upside down; if his figure be inverted, the form of the anterior parts of both 
radial and interradial pieces is well given, but he has not accurately represented the 
posterior margin, where in reality the interradial piece is somewhat concave but has no 
posterior prolongations, while each radial piece has on either side a slender tapering exten- 
sion, as long as the width of the ring. The calcareous particles of the body-wall are as 
figured by Bell, but most unfortunately he apparently saw the characteristic tables only 
from the inner side or else he observed only incomplete ones; for his figure of a ‘‘four- 
sided, four-chambered body”’ shows the lower surface of the disk of a table or a surface 
on which the spire is wanting; in all cases seen by me there is a more or less developed 
spire of 2 to 4 short rods, terminating in 3 to 6 coarse, sharp teeth; these spires are rela- 
tively low, not as high as the width of the plate; the tables are fairly abundant in the body- 
wall, but nowhere crowded; they are lacking in the introvert and in the wall of extended 
pedicels. Rosettes are abundant in the wall of the introvert and of the pedicels and base 
of the tentacles, as well as in the body-wall itself; everywhere they are more or less col- 
lected into heaps, forming little white spots when seen under a lens. Terminal plates of 
pedicels well developed, but supporting rods are very rare; those seen were relatively 
wide, with a double series of perforations. Tentacles, especially at tips of branches, with 
numerous, very slender supporting rods, slightly branched at the ends, commonly flattened 
and perforated there. 
This is a well-marked species, the validity of which is not affected by the idiosyncrasies 
of Bell’s account. It was collected by Dr. Coppinger at Port Molle, Clairmont Island, 
Thursday Island, and “Alert Island, 7 fms.” 
Phyllophorus schmeltzii. 
Thyonidium schmeltzii Ludwig. 1874. Arb. Zool.-zoot. Inst. Wirzburg, 2, p. 94, pl. vi, fig. 20. 
Phyllophorus schmeltzii Ludwig. 1892. Bronn’s Thierreich, 2, abt. 3, p. 347. 
On the last day of our stay at Mer, an exceptionally low tide made accessible the 
extreme outer part of the southwestern reef-flat, and a good many interesting echinoderms 
were collected. Among them is this little holothurian, of which 14 specimens were found 
among the dead portions of staghorn corals. They were uniformly dark brown in life, not 
the dull purplish or blackish of Pseudocucumis africana, which they resemble in size. They 
