Echinoderms.] SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 303 



The colour is usually a very dark green, more or less suffused with black or grey. 

 The starfish is so similarly coloured to the stones of the shingle under which it is 

 attached that it is easily overlooked ; but the large individuals are of purer green. 



This starfish was originally found and recorded by Hutton, who mentioned that 

 one of his specimens had a row of spines along the back, and traces of a lateral row 

 on each side. Amongst my specimens I also find individuals exhibiting this inter- 

 mediate character between the typical spinose form found on the shores of the main 

 islands of New Zealand and those spineless ones characteristic of the Auckland Islands. 



The large specimens alluded to above show the median row of spines very dis- 

 tinctly. In addition there are 10 groups of similar spines, 5 radial and 5 interradial, 

 arranged in a ring on the disc ; there may be as many as 4 spines in the radial groups 

 at the commencement of the median-arm row, and 2 or 3 in the interradial groups. 

 Further, there is within this ring, nearer the centre of the disc, a circle, more or less 

 imperfect ; while the madreporite is surrounded by a ring of 9 or 10 such spines. 

 The marginal plates, as in the type of the variety and in the smaller individuals, 

 each bear 2 or 3 spines in a slightly oblique line, so as to appear as an almost con- 

 tinuous series ; but between them and the adambulacrals are a few irregularly spaced 

 spines. It is not only in these particularly large specimens that the abactinal spines 

 are present, for in quite a small individual (R = 7 mm.) there is a median row of them. 



In another feature the large specimens differ from the smaller ones — viz., in the 

 arrangement of the papulae. In the individuals of about R = 17 mm. the papulae 

 are solitary, set in two rows on each side of the upper surface of the arm ; but in 

 slightly larger and older specimens (R = 26 mm.) the papulae are in groups of 3, 4, 

 or 5, or even occasionally 6 ; while in the largest individuals each group contains 

 10 or 12, or perhaps more : these groups are in the same transverse line as the spines. 



My specimens range from R = 7 mm., r = 3 mm., up to R = 50 mm., 

 r = 23 mm. The largest hitherto recorded are those described by Loriol, who gives 

 R = 36 mm. 



The relation r : R is as 1 : 2*3 or 1 : 2'17 ; the width of the arm at its base is 

 about equal to r / the height rather less. 



Locality. — Auckland Island, Carnley Harbour (Hutton, W. B. B.) ; Campbell 

 Island, Perseverance Harbour (Parker, W. B. B., Chilton, W. K. Chambers) ; Anti- 

 podes Island (W. B. B.). 



II. OPHIUROIDEA. 

 Fam. AMPHIURIDAE. 

 Amphiura, Forbes, 1842. 

 Amphiura squamata, Delle Chiaje. 



1828. Asterias squamata, Delle Chiaje, Mem. s. stor. d. Animali senza Vertebre, &c., 

 iii, p. 77. 1879. Amphiura parva, Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst., xi, p. 305. 

 1898. Amphiura elegans, Farquhar, Journ. Linn. Soc. (Zool.), xxvi, p. 191.* 



In 1879 Captain Hutton described a small Ophiurid from Dunedin under the 

 name A. parva, the type of which is in the Otago University Museum. From an 



* A complete svnonyiny is fi^ven in the " Challenger " Report, Ophiuroidea, vol. v, p. 136, and 

 in Bell's " Catalogue of British Echinoderms " (Brit. Mus.), p. 119. Although Bell uses Leach's specific 

 name elegans, most authorities, such as Ludwig, Lyman, &c., use Delle Chiaje's. 



