Indian Deep-sea Astcroidca. 83 



sharp rigid spine, beneath which is an oblif^uely vertical row 

 of three or four very slender accumbent spines. 



Adanibuhicral pUites with the furrow-margin slightly con- 

 vex, and armed with a comb of six or seven longish compressed 

 spinclets ; actinally each carries two longitudinal series of 

 small inflated membrane-clad spinclets, which arc grooved 

 down the middle like a barley-corn, four in each series. 

 Mouth-plates small, tumid, with a close suture ; each with a 

 furrow-series of about seven spinclets, the most central (adoral) 

 of which is of enormous relative size, and with two longitu- 

 dinal series of close barleycorn spinclets. 



Actinal interradial areas large, the intermediate plates 

 extending to the thirteenth or fourteenth infero-marginal ; 

 all are closely covered with barleycorn spinclets, which in 

 the plates adjoining the adambulacrals fall into clumps 

 resembling multivalve pedicellariffi. 



Madreporiform plate small and inconspicuous, placed about 

 two diameters from the margin of the disk. 



Ambulacral groove extremely broad; tube-feet large, 

 conical. The spirally coiled sacculated intestine opens at a 

 distinct subcentral vent. 



Colour in the fresh state olive-yellow, marginal plates 

 pink, tube-feet red. 



Gulf of Manaav, 738 fathoms, green mud. 



This species, like the rest, seems to resemble Psilaster 

 2)ata(/iatus, Sladen {' Challenger ' Asteroidea, p. 232, pi. xli. 

 tigs. 3 and 4, pi. vii. figs. 11 and 12), which Mr. Sladen 

 considers to be an abnormal Astropectinoid of Archasteroid 

 affinities, and quite unlike any other species of Psilaster. 



11. Persephonaster rJiodopeplus^ Alcock and Wood-Mason. 



Fersephoyiaater rhodopeplus, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Ilist., Dec. 1891, 

 p. 431. 



Eays 5. Il = 3*o >•. R =about 65 millim. in the 

 type specimen. 



Disk and rays quite rigid, their abactinal surface covered 

 ^\ith very close-set tabulate paxillaj surmounted by numerous 

 uniform Hat-topped granules; the paxillai are very small and 

 crowded towards the subcentral anal aperture, and on the 

 rays fall into transverse curved rows j the whole abactinal 

 surface is perforated by close- set papulaj. 



The supero-marginal plates number about 28, and are 

 directly superposed on the infero-marginals, plate to plate; 

 they are covered with granules, which are coarse and distant 

 in the middle of the plate, and are armed with sharp rigid 

 spines — those in the interbrachia with one, those along the 



