84 CALYCOSILVA CANTHARELLUS. 
and size; the number of them on each of the six main-rays is, however, by no 
means always the same. The end-rays are 1.5-2 » thick at the base, and arise 
steeply, sometimes at nearly right angles, from the main-rays. Farther on 
they curve inward, towards the continuation of the axis of the main-ray to which 
they belong. Distally this curvature rapidly decreases and the end-part is 
for a smaller or greater, usually a very considerable length, either quite straight 
or only slightly curved, or irregularly bent like an oak-branch and knotty in 
appearance. Onychhexasters with end-rays thus bent have been chiefly found 
in C.c. var. megonychia (Plate 4, figs. 2-4, 14,17). In all regular onychhexasters, 
whether large or small, the centrum, the main-rays, and the proximal parts of the 
end-rays are nearly identical in shape and have the dimensions given above; the 
ereat differences in these hexasters observed are entirely due to differences 
in the degree of longitudinal development of the distal straight end-parts of 
the end-rays. In the smallest onychhexasters observed (Plate 3, fig. 21) this 
distal straight part is quite insignificant and hardly distinguishable. The 
larger the onychhexaster is, the longer and the more conspicuous does this part 
of the end-ray become (Plate 3, figs. 22-27; Plate 4, figs. 2-7). The end-rays 
are cylindroconic, attenuated distally. This attenuation is slight and very 
much the same in all end-rays, however long they may be. The consequence 
of this is that the thickness of their distal ends is in inverse proportion to the 
length of the end-rays; greatest in the shortest, and smallest in the longest. 
In the small onychhexasters, 39-45 u in diameter, of C. c. var. helix, the end-rays 
are 15-18 » long and 1-1.8 » thick at the end; in the largest onychhexasters, 
80-88 . in diameter, of the same variety the end-rays are 34-41 » long and only 
0.8-1 uw thick at the end. In the larger onychhexasters of C.c. vars. simplex 
and megonychia the same inverse relation between the length and terminal thick- 
ness of the end-rays is observed. The angles between the chords of end-rays 
arising opposite each other from the same main-ray are correlated and in inverse 
proportion to the size of the spicule and the length of the end-rays. In the small 
onychhexasters, 39-45 » in diameter, of C. c. var. helix, these angles are 70°—90° ; 
in the large ones, 80-88 » in diameter, of the same variety 59°—-77°. 
The end-rays bear numerous small recurved spines along their length 
(Plate 3, fig. 28; Plate 4, figs. 9, 10, 16) and one to five large spines at the end. 
The former are largest and most conspicuous in the smallest onychhexasters 
(Plate 3, fig. 22); in the large onychhexasters they are smaller. Their size is, on 
the whole, in inverse proportion to the length of the end-rays and the size of 
the whole spicule. In the smallest onychhexasters the terminal spines are 2-3 yu 
