66 THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. [CHAP. 11. 
pods, sponges, echinoderms, crustaceans, and molluscs; 
among them a magnificent specimen of a new star- 
fish which has been since described by M. G. O. Sars 
under the name of Brisinga coronata (Fig. 5). The 
genus Brisinga was discovered in 1853 by M. P. Chr. 
Absjérnsen, who then dredged several specimens of 
another species, B. endecacnemos, ABSJ., at a depth 
of 100 to 200 fathoms in the Hardangerfjord on 
the Norway coast a little to the south of Bergen. 
These are certainly very wonderful creatures. At 
first sight they look intermediate between ophiurids 
and star-fishes, the arms too thick and soft for the 
former, but much more long and delicate than we 
usually find them in the latter group. 
The disk is small, about. 20 to 25 mm. in diameter ; 
in B. endecacnemos nearly smooth, in 2B. coronata 
covered with spines. The madreporiform tubercle is 
on the dorsal surface close to the edge of the disk. A 
firm ring of calcareous ossicles forms and supports the 
edge of the disk, and gives attachment to the arms. 
The arms are ten or eleven in number: the latter 
number is probably abnormal. They are sometimes 
as much as 30 centimetres in length; narrow at the 
base, where they are inserted into the ring; enlarging 
considerably towards the middle, where the ovaries are 
developed; and tapering again to the end. Rows of 
long spines border the ambulacral grooves; the spines 
are covered with a soft skin, which, when the animal is 
quite fresh, forms a little transparent, sack-like expan- 
sion full of fluid at the end of each spine. The soft 
covering of the spines is full of small pedicellarie, 
and pedicellariz are likewise scattered in groups over 
the surface of the arms and disk. 
