Indian Deep-sea Asteroidea. 79 



Papularia small and compact, with only five or six papuUe 

 in each. 



Colour in the fresh state delicate pink. 



Laccadive Sea, 1200 fathoms, coral and Glohigerina- 

 ooze. 



6. Pontaster Jiispidus^ Alcock and Wood-Mason. 

 Pontaster hispidus, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., Dec. 1891, p. 428. 



This species is very closely related both to P. forclpatus, 

 Sladen, and to P. mimicus, Sladen, but especially to P.forci- 

 patuSj var. echinata, Sladen, from the southern limit of the 

 Indian Ocean. 



Abundant on the green mud of the Laccadive Sea at about 

 1000 fathoms. 



7. Pontaster pilosus, sp. n. 



Also allied to P. mimicus. 



Eays 5. E. = about 6 r. E,= 70 millim. in the 

 type specimen. 



Disk of moderate size ; rays rather lon^^. 



Abactinal surface covered with densely crowded spinose 

 paxillse of two kinds in nearly equal proportions, the one kind 

 crowned with about eight spinelets of uniform size, the other 

 kind bearing also a central spine — these, seen in mass, pro- 

 ducing a shaggy appearance. 



Marginal plates extremely tumid, uniformly invested with 

 capillary spinelets. 



Supero-marginal plates 30 to 35, forming a broad abactinal 

 border to the disk and rays, each with a large spine quite on 

 its inferior (actinad) margin. [In P. hispidus the spine is 

 quite on the superior (abactinad) margin of the plate.] 



Infero-marginal plates alternate with the supero-marginals 

 nearly to the tip of the ray, each with a large spine at its 

 superior (abactinad) margin, and with from one to three much 

 smaller and slenderer spines vertically beneath it. 



The distant adambulacral plates are so convex marginally 

 as almost to meet from opposite sides across the furrow; each 

 has a furrow-series of about eight spinelets upstanding in a 

 semicircle around a large actinal spine, which is nearly as big 

 as the spines of the corresponding supero-marginal plate ; 

 outside the actinal spine an irregular row of capillary spiiielets 

 completes the circle with the furrow spinelets. The mouth- 

 plates are hardly modified from this type, but, like the first 



