188 ASTROPIIYTON AGASSIZII. 



large, rounded grain?;. The armature of the mouth consisted only of a 

 single vertical row of conical teeth, whereof the lowest seemed some- 

 times to be split in two. The joints of the arms were constricted at 

 the base, just as in a simple armed Ophiuran, and bore but a single row 

 of small, hooked spines ; the upper surface was clothed with large, 

 round grains ; the lower with a small, diamond-shaped under arm-plate, 

 and side arm-plates, which met on the middle line. Two specimens, 

 with disks of 3™"^- and 4'""-, had arms with two forks, and the disk 

 pretty closely covered with grains, so that the plates were no longer 

 distinct. 



Astroi^hyfon Agassizii has been obtained from the Gulf of Saint 

 Lawrence (Captain Atwood), from Grand Manan Island (Stimpson), 

 and from Cape Cod (Captain Atwood). It is distinguished readily 

 from A. encnemls and A. Caryl by the short, blunt, conical spines 

 on the radial ribs. 



The following letters of Governor John Winthrop deserve notice, 

 as showing that this singular animal early attracted the attention of 

 our foreflithers. The descriptions themselves are quite worthy of a 

 regularly educated naturalist : — 



Philosophical Transactions, Vol. IV. Page 1152. 1G70. 



An Extract of a Letter written hj John "Winthrop, Esq., Governor of Connecticut in 

 New England, to the Publisher, concerning some Natural Curiosities of those Parts, 

 especially a very strange and very curiously contrived Fish, sent for the Repository of 

 the Royal Society. 



" There is, besides, in a large roiinfl Box, a strange kind of Fish, which was taken by a 

 Fisherman when he was fishing for Codfish in that Sea which is without Massachuset Bay- 

 in N. England. It was living when it was taken, which was done, I think, by an hook. 

 The name of it I know not, nor can I write more particularly of it, because I could not yet 

 speak with the Fisherman who brought it from Sea. I have not seen the like. The 

 Mouth is in the middle ; and they say that all the arms you see round about were in 

 motion when it was first taken. 



" We omit the other particulars here, that we may reflect a little upon this elaborate 

 piece of Nature. The Fish, which, since it is yet nameless, we may call Piscis Echiuo- 

 Stellaris Visciformis ; its Body (as was noted by M. Hook) resembling an Echinus or 

 Egg-fish, the main Branches a Star, and the dividing of the branches the Plant Missel-toe. 

 This Fish spreads itself from a Pentagonal Root, which incompasseth the Mouth (being in 

 the middle) into 5 main Limbs or branches, each of which, just at issuing out from the 

 Body, subdivides itself into two, and each of those 10 branches do again divide into two 

 parts, making 20 lesser branches ; Each of which again divide into 2 smaller branches, 

 making in all 40. These again into 80, and those into IGO ; and they into 320 ; they into 

 G40; into 1280; into 2oGoI into 5120; into 10240; into 20480; into 409G0; into 81920; 

 beyond which the further expanding of the Fish could not be certainly trac'd, though 

 ])ossibly each of those 81920 small sprouts or threds, in which the branches of this Fish 

 seem'd to terminate, might, if it could have been examined when living, have been found 

 to subdivide yet farther. The Branches between the Joynts were not equally of a length, 

 thougli, for the most part, pretty near ; but those Branches which were on that side of the 



