528 Stimpson on the Crustacea and Echinodermata 
ASTERIAS EPICHLORA. Brandt. 
Asterias epichlora, BRANDT ; l. c. 70. 
Asterias Katherine, Gray; An. § Mag. Nat. Hist. vi. 179. 
This slender-rayed species sometimes reaches a diameter 
of more than a foot. The specimens in the Smithsonian 
collection were sent from Puget Sound by Dr. Suckley. 
ASTERIAS BREVISPINA. Stimpson, n. $. 
PL XXHI f. 8. 
Rays five, each equalling in length twice the diameter of 
the disk. Upper surface covered with very short, blunt, nearly 
uniform spines, moderately numerous, sometimes forming 
an irregular row along the middle of the ray, and showing 
a tendency to reticulation on the sides. Beneath there is a 
single row of slender ambulacral spines, which are blunt and 
somewhat irregular in length; between these and the mer 
ginal channel there are four rows of short compressed spines, 
gouge-shaped, or notched by an oblique concavity at their 
truncated extremities. Madreporic body large. Color yel-- 
lowish. Diameter, six inches. 
Taken from a sandy bottom in ten fathoms near the 
mouth of San Francisco Bay. The figure represents 4 
portion of the lower surface. 
ASTERIAS GIGANTEA. Stimpson, n. S. 
Pl. XXIII. f. 4. 5. 6. 
Body very large, swollen; rays six in number, in length 
somewhat less than twice the diameter of the disk. à Up Lun 
surface covered with numerous short, blunt, equidistant 
spines, uniform in size and regularly distributed; these 
spines are somewhat conical in shape, but truncated at M 
tip and constricted at the base, with the sides longitu- 
dinally furrowed. The spines of the lower surface ar 
