1 14 VERRILL 



If A. douglasi* be really identical with A. borealis, as some claim, 

 and that particular specimen, seen, but not described, by Perrier, is 

 the same, it could hardly have been from the mouth of the Columbia 

 River, as stated by Gray; for A. borealis (or acervata) has not been 

 found on the northwest coast south of the Aleutian Islands by any of 

 the numerous recent expeditions to that coast, so far as I know. On 

 the other hand, the monacanthid, six-rayed species (grayi V.) 

 belongs to a group of allied species well represented in Puget Sound 

 and southward, so that the locality given by Gray might be right for 

 that one. What his five-rayed specimens were I do not know; pos- 

 sibly they were E. troschelii. 



ASTERIAS MULTICLAVA Verrill, sp. nov. 



V 



Plate LVIII, figure 2; plate LIX, figure i (large, actinal) ; plate LXIX, figure i; 

 plate LXXXIV, figures 2, 20 (details). 



?? Asterias camtschatica BRANDT, Prod., p. 270, 1835 (description insufficient, 

 perhaps A. epichlora, six-rayed var.). ? Stuxberg, Evert. Fauna Sib. Is., 

 p. 28, 1880. Sladen, Voy. Chall., p. 820, 1889. Ludwig (pars}, Fauna 

 Arctica, i, p. 485, 1900 (distribution). 



t? Asteracanthium canttschaticum BRANDT, in Middendorff, Reise, n, p. 32, 

 185.1. ? Grube, Nova Acta Acad. Cxs. Leop., xxvii, pp. 23, 26, 1857 

 (A steracanthion) . 



Rays six, rather long and tapered ; disk small ; radii, 14 mm. and 

 62 mm. ; ratio, i : 4.4. Dorsal and ventral spines short, clavate, and 

 capitate, very numerous, arranged largely in distinct radial bands. 

 The dorsal spines are all similar in form and not very diverse in size. 

 They form three or five crowded rows, with some scattered between ; 

 the median row is a little more conspicuous and its spines are 

 crowded and a little clustered in many places. Those of the disk 

 form many small clusters, but are not acervate; a circle of the 

 smaller ones surrounds the madreporite. The superomarginal row 

 is regular and compressed, having either two or (in the adult) three 

 capitate spines to a plate. The inferomarginals are longer, stout, 

 clavate, and stand either one or two to a plate, according to the age. 

 The peractinals are similar, and stand mostly one (in the young), 

 but often two (in the adult), to a plate; there is also a short sub- 

 actinal row, and a short proximal, intermarginal row of small spines. 

 Thus in the adult the lateral and interactinal spines are unusually 



1 The types of A. douglasi are, apparently, the five specimens, without locality, 

 preserved in the Paris Museum. The British Museum specimen may not 

 have been identical, but really Gray's type, from off the Columbia River. 



