NEW STARFISHES FROM DEEP WATER OEE CALIFORNIA AND ALASKA. 311 



Madreporic body large, irregular, much as in phrygiana. 



Locality: Type from station 4-129, off Santa Cruz [gland, Cal., 506 to 680 fins., green mud, black 

 pebbles, broken stones. 



CRYFTOPELTASTER, new genus. 



Most nearly related to Hippasteria, from which it differs in having the whole abactinal surface 

 covered with numerous Hat, irregularly circular, oval, elliptical, triangular, polygonal, quadrate and 

 boomerang-shaped scales, attached to the plates and smaller secondary ossicles by the middle of the 

 under surface, leaving free the edges of the scales, which frequently overlap. These scales, though 

 robust enough, have a very peculiar chaffy appearance and completely hide the outlines of the under- 

 lying plates, the larger of which bear each a short conical spine. Numerous long, low. bivalved 

 pedicellaria on abactinal surface; marginal plates tumid, covered with irregular, polygonal, plate-like 

 scales or granules and bearing a central tubercular spine; no odd interradial; adambulacral plates with 

 1 actinal and 2 stout furrow spines, flattened or flaring at the tips, occasionally grooved or incipiently 

 bifid or tritid; sometimes a large sessile bivalved pedicellaria replacing the furrow spines; actinal 

 interradial areas extensive, the plates covered with plate-like granules and central tubercles and 

 tubercular granules; series adjacent to adambulacrals bearing large bivalved pedicellarhe. Type, 

 ' 'ryplopeltasterlqridonotus, new species. 



Cryptopeltaster lepidonotus, new species. 



Rays 5. R = 105mm.; r = 51 mm. R = 2.(-t-)r. Breadth of ray at base, between second and 

 third supermarginal. 50 mm. or less, according to degree of inflation of abactinal area. 



Disk large; rays fairly well developed, tapering to a blunt tip, which is much recurved; inter- 

 brachial arcs very wide, and rounded; abactinal area much inflated on rays and radial areas of disk, 

 also in each interradius adjacent to margin: actinal area subplane. 



Abactinal surface covered with peculiar, flattened, scale-like granules, which are irregularly cir- 

 cular, oval, elliptical, triangular, polygonal, quadrate, boomerang-shaped, and of several other shapes 

 which defy description, of greatly varying sizes, so closely placed that they often overlap a trifle; 

 attached to the larger plates of the skeleton by the middle of their under surface, being entirely free 

 around the edge; or, forming the flaring summit of many variously sized ossicles packed between the 

 regular rows of rather widely separated primary plates. These scales might be likened to the flaring 

 head of-a wire nail. The exposed surface of many is raised into a low tubercular eminence. Primary 

 plates superficially marked by a robust, low, conical spine, about the base of which is a series of elon- 

 gated granules often curiously excavated on the edge, these spines decreasing in size toward edge of 

 disk and end of ray, and grading into broad conical granules in the interradial areas, where the primary 

 plates are small, closely packed, and the secondary ossicles nearly wanting: on the ray a radial and :; 

 or 4 parallel series of spines on either side, all low (1.5 mm. ), scarcely more than tubercles; long, low, 

 bivalved pedicellaria- (2.5-4 mm. in length) numerous on abactinal surface, especially on interradial 

 areas, center of disk, and proximal radial areas, each surrounded by a series of quadrilateral granules of 

 various sizes; papula.' numerous, especially on rays, but apparently absent from a very small inter- 

 radial area adjacent to marginal plates. 



Superomarginal plates rather small, irregularly quadrilateral, higher than long in middle of inter- 

 brachial arc, but longer than high throughout most of ray; on account of the inflation of the 

 abactinal surface these plates confined to side of ray, and the abactinal edge of each arched; each 

 plate tumid and bearing in the center a rigid acorn-shaped or conical tubercular spine slightly larger 

 than those of the median radial series; general surface of plates covered with polygonal granules 

 similar to those of abactinal surface, the peripheral scales being elongated, a number on each plate 

 convex or low conical. Superomarginals 2ti or 27 in number from median interradial line to extremity 

 of ray. Inferomarginals slightly larger, and more nearly square on the ray where the upper series 



is oblong; in general each inferomarginal corres] ling to a super, , marginal, similarly covered with 



granules (most of which, exclusive of the peripheral series, are prominent or subcorneal ), and bearing 

 1 or 2, rarely 3, tubercular spines in the center, all short and stubby; smaller plates intercalated here 

 and there in the inferior series, apparently due to injury of some sort. 



Adambulacral plates nearly square, each bearing '2 large, heavy spines on the margin, usually 

 compressed and truncate at tip, or occasionally flaring, and, again, grooved at tip and incipiently bifid 



