BERMUDA ECHINODERMS. 121 



gradations cannot be found. It seems to me that the smaller 

 size of the spotted form and the occasional absence of one or 

 two tentacles may be indications of immaturity. We know 

 nothing of the breeding habits of this species, but if the early 

 period of life were passed in deep water or on a different bottom 

 from that where the adults are found, the relative scarcity of the 

 spotted form would be easily accounted for. The whole ques- 

 tion offers a fascinating field of inquiry for the zoologist fortu- 

 nate enough to spend some weeks on the island. Since, how- 

 ever the intergrading forms have not been found, diaboli must 

 for the present stand as a recognizable species. 



There are more than twenty specimens, of varying size, of 

 the small holothurian, which was identified last year ^ with H. 

 surinamensis Ludw. A careful examination of these and com- 

 parison with specimens of surinamensis from Jamaica has con- 

 vinced me that the form from Bermuda cannot properly be 

 separated from that species. The only constant difference 

 which I can find is in the absence from the body-wall of the 

 " bars " which are present as supporting rods in the pedicels and 

 papillae. It might easily be supposed from Ludwig's descrip- 

 tion ^ that in his specimens these bars were present only as sup- 

 porting rods, but Theel ^ found them in the body -wall of speci- 

 mens from Mexico, and in my Jamaica specimens they are 

 present, though few and far between. I have not found them 

 in a single one of the specimens from Bermuda, but it is not 

 impossible that they may be present. But even if they are not, 

 it does not seem tome that that fact would justify the formation 

 of a new species. The calcareous tables are like those figured 

 by Ludwig and are very numerous, but in the pedicels and 

 papillae they have usually a well-developed disc, the edge of 

 which is not smooth, but rather irregular and with a number of 

 spiny projections. These tables also have more teeth (18-20) 

 at the apex than the common tables of the body-wall. This is 

 true of Jamaica specimens as well as those from Bermuda. 

 The radial pieces of the calcareous ring are not exactly like 

 Ludwig's figure, being wider than they are high, and not over- 

 topping the interradial pieces so much. The pedicels are irregu- 



