44 BULLETIN 75, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



perature 56.3, 3 specimens; Coal Station, Unga, 1 specimen: 

 Arctic Cruise of the Corwin, 183 specimens; Arctic Ocean, 1,139 

 specimens; St. Pauls Island, 1 specimen; Bering Straits, 12 fathoms, 

 gravel, 34 specimens; Bering Straits, 1 specimen; 10 miles west of 

 Point Franklin, Alaska, 13i fathoms, sand, 41 specimens; Popoft' 

 Strait, 6 fathoms, 6 specimens; Alaska, 143 specimens; Cape Sa- 

 bine, Alaska, 13 fathoms, 4 specimens; 15 miles west of Cape Krusen- 

 stern, 5 fathoms, mud, 5 specimens; 66 45' N. by 166 35' W., 13 

 specimens; Iliuliuk, 78 specimens; Nazan Bay, Atka, 21 speci- 

 mens; Captains Harbor, Unalaska, 21 specimens; Port Levasheff, 

 Unalaska, 3 specimens; Kadiak, 23 specimens; Sitka, Alaska, 15 

 fathoms, 9 specimens; Monterey, California, 1 specimen; unknown 

 stations, 1,812 specimens. Bathymetrical range, 5 to 695 fathoms. 

 Temperature range, 56.3 to 30.1. Twenty thousand nine hundred 

 and thirty-two specimens. 



This extraordinary array of specimens exhibits considerable diver- 

 sity in several details. The smallest specimens have the disk about 

 3 mm. in diameter, while in the largest specimens it exceeds 32. 

 Most of the specimens are uniformly gray in color, but there is great 

 variety of shade, some being very dark, others .very light, others 

 decidedly yellowish, and others more or less brown. Some specimens, 

 generally young ones, have the arms banded with yellowish or whitish, 

 and in a few cases there are whitish spots or markings on the disk. 

 Several specimens are distinctly spotted with black. There is equal 

 diversity in the length of the arm spines ; in some specimens even the 

 uppermost spine is scarcely as long as a joint, while at the other 

 extreme we find specimens in which it equals two joints. The scales 

 of the disk exhibit more or less diversity, for they are commonly per- 

 fectly flat, but they may be more or less swollen, so that the disk is 

 sometimes very rough. The arm comb, too, displays considerable 

 variety, for while the papillae are never as broad, truncate, and 

 crowded as in luikeni nor as slender and delicate as in kinbergi, yet 

 they range from those which are wider than long and bluntly rounded 

 to those which are several times as long as they are thick and are 

 nearly cylindrical in form. In any case they are almost always well 

 spaced. In large specimens they are sometimes greatly reduced. 

 The chief interest in this huge collection of sarsii is the light which it 

 throws on the distribution of the species in the North Pacific Ocean. 

 Previously known from the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans and 

 from Bering Sea down to depths of about 1,700 fathoms, this col- 

 lection shows it to be by far the most abundant ophiuran in the North 

 Pacific, occurring at least as far south on both coasts as lat. 38 N., 

 and down to depths of about 700 fathoms. It is interesting to note 

 that some of the diversities of form and color referred to above are 

 associated with certain geographical areas. Thus the black-spotted 



