Indian Deep-sea Asteroidp.a. Ill 



are found in a close double row in the furrow on each side of 

 the mid-radial series of plates ; minute perforations occur 

 between some of the other rows of plates, but they are only- 

 visible with a lens, and seem to be far too small to give exit 

 to papulse. 



The adambulacral plates are covered with fiat foliaceous 

 spinelets ; every alternate plate has a prominent intra-ambu- 

 lacral ridge bearing a row of three sabre-shaped spines, and 

 deep within the furrow a slender spinelet furnished with 

 several pedicellaria?, one of which is large. Mouth-plates 

 with stout spinelets and clusters of pedicellariee. 



Tube-feet quadriserial. 



Madreporiform plate small — half the size of a basal inter- 

 radial plate — but tumid and conspicuous, with coarse radial 

 striations. 



Gulf of Manaar, 597 fathoms, green mud ; Laccadive Sea, 

 1200 fathoms, coral and Globigerina-oozQ. 



In a youngish specimen (11 = 65 millim.) R=about8r; 

 the mid-radial plates are relatively larger; the rays terminate 

 in a rather inflated bilobed plate fringed with spines ; and 

 the papulge, which are in a double row on each side of the 

 mid-radial series of plates, extend only about halfway along 

 the rays. 



Zoroaster GUesn, Z. squamous, and Z. zea foi'm a very 

 well-detined group within the genus Zoroaster, and, along 

 with Z. Sigsheei, Perrier (Nonv. Archiv. du Mus. ser. ii. 

 vol, vi., 1883, p. li)5, pi. iii. fig. 2), may perhaps be con- 

 veniently recognized as a subgenus. The tbllowing characters 

 are common to the first three species, and, as far as can be 

 judged from the rather brief though very succinct description 

 of Professor Perrier and from the phototype figure, appear 

 to be shared by the last : — (i.) the disk is verj' distinctly 

 demarcated from the rays abactinally by massive plates 

 which form a circumferential series — one plate at the base of 

 each ray and four in each interradius; (ii.) the rays are 

 particularly rigid, with the longitudinal mid-radial row of 

 plates neither conspicuously large nor very prominent, and 

 the papulee of the rays are more or less restricted to two single 

 or double rows, one on each side of the mid-radial row of 

 plates [in Z. Sigsheei the papular orifices seem to have been 

 only doubtfully recognized {torn, et loc. cit.)^ ; (iii.) the three 

 actinad rows of plates are much crushed together (?Z. Sigsheei), 

 and are always more densely covered with spinelets and more 

 conspicuously armed than the plates of the abactinad rows, 



