SHALLOW-WATER STARFISHES 97 



This species ranges from Puget Sound to Sitka. Puget Sound 

 (Professor Kincaid) ; Kuper Island and Victoria (C. F. New- 

 combe) ; Sitka (Harriman Expedition, W. R. Coe). 



PISASTER GRAYI Verrill, nom. nov. 



Asterias katherine Perkier, Steller. du Mus., Archiv Zool. Exper., iv, p. 331, 



1875 («0M Gray, 1840). 

 Asterias dubia Verrill, Amer. Naturalist, xliii, p. 545, 1909 (mom Clark). 



Perrier evidently erred in his determination of Gray's type of 

 A. katherin<2, for Gray stated that his species had two spines on each 

 adambulacral plate, as I have elsewhere explained.^ 



According to Perrier it has the following characters : 



Ordinarily six rays, sometimes five, upper side of the body little 

 convex, rays broad at the base, pointed at the tip. Radii as 1:7. 

 Between tips of rays about 4 deem. Adambulacral spines in a single 

 range,' with some small clusters of major pedicellarise upon the outer 

 side. Immediately beyond these comes a band of stouter ventral 

 spines, formed by transverse ranges of two or even three spines. 

 A narrow channel separates this band from another simple range of 

 spines, representing the lateral spines. Then comes a pretty wide 

 naked band, and a very irregular range of shorter spines, which 

 indicates the commencement of the dorsal region. The latter is cov- 

 ered with numerous short spines, with the head rounded and strongly 

 striated ; sometimes isolated, sometimes in groups of two or three, 

 but disposed without order. A circle of minor pedicellarige, small in 

 number, surrounds the base of these spines. Some small major pedi- 

 cellariae are scattered between them, but these are particularly 

 numerous on the sides, between the back and and the line of lateral 

 spines, in the channel that separates this line from the band of 

 ventral spines, and between the latter and the adambulacral spines. 

 These major pedicellarise have the form of a short isosceles triangle 

 with a pretty large base. The madreporic plate is marginal. Color, 

 when dry, red. 



Gray gave the locality of his specimens as " Mouth of the Colum- 

 bia." This locality is uncertain, however ; for his specimens, as 

 labelled, were a mixed lot. (See p. 113, below.) 



Perrier regarded A. gigantea Stimpson as a doubtful synonym of 

 this species, to which it is possibly related. But gigantea has a much 



* Gray's true type is doubtful. (See page 113.) It could not have been this 

 species. 

 ' This does not agree with Gray's statement. (See below, p. 112.) 



8 



