286 VERR1LL 



Interactinal plates usually numerous, angular, tesselated, or imbri- 

 cated. Superambulacral plates may be present or absent. Tube-feet 

 are in two rows and have suckers. 



Pedicellariae usually present, often large, usually bivalve, but may 

 be multivalved, foraminate, more often f ossate. They may occur on 

 any of the plates, or on the thick skin that covers them in some 

 genera (Anthenea, etc.). 



NOTE ON THE EARLY GENERIC NOMENCLATURE OF THE 

 GONIASTERID.E. 1 



The name Pentagonaster, as used by Linck, designated a composite 

 group of pentagonal starfishes of this family and others ; but Linck 

 was not a binomial writer. Gray, 1840, was the first binomial writer 

 to adopt Linck's name. He restricted it to a small group, afterwards 

 named Stephanaster by Ayres (type P. pulchellus) f chiefly distin- 

 guished by the swollen distal marginal plates. To this type Pentag- 

 onaster must evidently be restricted. 



Goniaster L. Agassiz, 1835.* This generic name was also intended 

 to include all the pentagonal starfishes then known to him, that are 

 now referred to Goniasteridae and Oreasteridae. 



Among the species named by Agassiz was G. tesselatus Lam. 

 J. E. Gray, in 1840, restricted Goniaster to the latter, as he had a 

 perfect right to do, and his use of the name must be maintained. 

 For another of the species (equestris), cited by Agassiz, Gray 

 established the genus Hippasteria, at the same time. The first and 

 the third species were placed by Gray in his genus Pentaceros, now 

 Oreaster (M. andTr.). 



The species named by Agassiz (see foot note 2, this page) thus be- 

 came the types of three genera in Gray's system. There is no reason, 

 under the accepted rules of priority, for changing his application of 

 the first two of these generic names, for his types are all well- 

 known species. 



It is possible, however, that it may eventually be thought by some 

 desirable to unite Gray's three genera Goniaster (restr.), Pentag- 



1 See also Verrill, Revision of Certain Genera and Species of Starfishes, 

 etc., Trans. Conn. Acad. Sci., x, pp. 146-162 (Goniasteridae). Fisher, W. K., 

 Necessary Changes in the Nomenclature of Starfishes, Smithsonian Miscell. 

 Coll., LII, 1908, pp. 91-93 (historical), and op. cit, I9H&, p. 163. 



"The species of Goniaster cited by Agassiz (Prodromus, 1835, p. 191) are 

 as follows : First, G. reticulatus (now Oreaster) ; second, G. equestris (now 

 Hippasteria phrygiana) ; third, G. nodosus (now Oreaster) ; fourth, G. tessela- 

 tus (the type of Goniaster Gray). 



