146 VERRILL 



dorsal spines are numerous, small, short, stumpy, usually truncate or 

 slightly clavate, but not much enlarged at tip and not much longer 

 than thick. They 'are in small groups on the larger plates, isolated 

 on the smaller ones. Major pedicellariae of rather large size, but 

 few in number, are present on the inferior interbrachial areas ; these 

 are compressed, acute, lanceolate. Others of similar form, but 

 smaller, are found within the edges of the ambulacral grooves and 

 on the adjacent spines. Minor pedicellariae are few and minute. 



The specimens of this species are small and poorly preserved, 

 having lost many of their spines. It appears to be allied to 

 L. cequalis more nearly than to other species, but it is much more 

 slender than that and has much larger ambulacral pores, while the 

 dorsal plates are closely imbricated. 



Sitka (Harriman Expedition) ; Queen Charlotte Islands (G. M. 

 Dawson) . 



Genus Stephanasterias Verrill. 

 Type, 5". albula Verrill (Stimpson sp.). 



Stichaster (pars) VERRILL, op. cit, 1866, p. 551 ; Perrier, op. cit, 1875, p. 347 ; 



Sladen, op. cit., 1889, p. 432. 

 Stephanasterias VERRILL, Bull. Essex Inst., i, p. 5, 1871 ; op. cit., 1874, p. 353 ; 



Revision Genera, op. cit., 1899, p. 222. 

 Nanaster PERRIER, op. cit., 1894, pp. 129, 131, 133. 



Dorsal ossicles small, not closely joined, the radial series not in 

 very regular rows; median row more or less imbricated; often not 

 much differentiated, three-lobed; transverse ossicles strong, notably 

 regularly arranged in oblique rows; all covered with numerous 

 crowded, small, subequal spinules, in divergent clusters, arranged in 

 transverse rows on the rays. Papular areas serial, small, with few 

 or solitary papulae. 



Superomarginal plates similar to dorsals; not very distinct, and 

 with similar numerous spinules. Inferomarginal plates oblique and 

 prominent, in a close row, multispinose, their spines longer than those 

 of dorsals. No interactinal plates. Adambulacral spines usually dip- 

 lacanthid or irregularly triplacanthid. Sucker-feet quadriserial. 

 Pedicellariae of two kinds, as in Asterias; many dermal minor pedi- 

 cellariae. 



Besides the type, which is autotomous, this genus appears to 

 include 5\ gracilis of the West Indies, which is six-rayed. 



These two species have usually been referred to Stichasterinae by 

 recent writers, but to me they seem closely allied to Leptasterias. 

 (See also pp. 40-41, above.) Seen from the inner surface, the dorsal 



