1882. | OR RARE SPECIES OF ASTEROIDEA. 123 
Miruropia vicrori#, n.sp. (Plate VI. figs. 3, 3 a.) 
R = 265, r= 3:5; R=30, r= 46. Arms five, 4 or 4°2 
millim. wide at their base, and not diminishing in breadth for some 
distance from the disk ; integument of the abactinal surface marked 
out into spaces by the arms of the calcareous skeletal pieces; a few 
spines, two or three millimetres long, are to be found along the 
middle line of the arm; a few spines, which are generally a little 
longer, are placed at the upper or abactinal edge of the side of the 
arm. They frequently exhibit a white and brown patchwork-like 
coloration, which is due to the arrangement of the pigment in the 
integument which covers them. The actinal or lower margin of the 
side of the arm has along it from 7 to 10 spines of about the same 
length as those on the upper margin. The rather wide ambulacral 
groove is fringed by a regular series of short blunt spines, which are 
strongest in the region which falls within the disk. Within this 
series there is a row of smaller and more delicate spines, of which 
about five, set in fan-shape, belong to each ambulacral ossicle; the 
outer and larger spines may be coarsely granulated. The madre- 
poric plate is small, white, and rounded, and is set not far from the 
centre of the disk; the abactinal surface of the disk presents no 
characters by which it may be distinguished from that of the arms ; 
the papulee on the actinal surface are rare. No pedicellariz detected. 
This new species is to be distinguished from M. clavigera by 
(1) the rarity of the papular spaces on the abactinal surface, (2) by 
the proportionally smaller spines, and (3) by the absence of a row 
of spines between the ventro-marginal series and the abactinal rows, 
a row which appears to be constantly present in the better-known 
form. Judging from the single specimen of M. bradleyi in the 
collection of the British Museum, that species has much larger 
papular pores, has two rows of spines on the actinal surface of the 
rays, and none at all on their abactinal surface. 
Victoria Bank (20° 42! S., 37° 27' W.); depth 39 fathoms ; 
bottom, dead coral. 
Both the specimens from which the above description has been 
drawn up are injured; one appears to have lost one of its arms 
during life, as the free end is healed. They formed part of the 
collection made by Dr. Coppinger (H.M.S. ‘ Alert’) in 1879-80; 
but they were not noticed in my report (P. Z.S. 1881), as they 
did not form a part of the fauna of the Straits of Magellan. 
FROMIA INDICA. 
Fromia indica, Perrier, Rév. des Stellér. p. 177. 
Scytaster indicus, Perrier, Ann. Sc. Nat. (5) xii. p. 255. 
Although M, Perrier’s description states that his specimen has six 
rays, I have no hesitation in assigning to the species a five-rayed 
specimen, in which the proportion of R to r is somewhat greater 
than in the example which formed the object of M. Perrier’s 
description. I base the determination chiefly on the following con- 
siderations :—The presence of six rays is of itself no evidence in 
favour of a true polyactinid condition as against a possible heter- 
