528 Stimpson on the Crustacea and Echinodermata 



ASTERIAS EPICHLORA. Brandt. 



Asterias epichlora, Brandt ; I. c. 70. 



Asterias Katherinae, 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. s. 

 PL XXIII. f. 3. 



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 mar- 

 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 a 

 portion of the lower surface. 



ASTERIAS GIGANTEA. Stimpson, n. s. 

 PI. XXIII. f. 4. 5. 6. 



Body very large, swollen ; rays six in number, in length 

 somewhat less than twice the diameter of the disk. Upper 

 surface covered with numerous short, blunt, equidistant 

 spines, uniform in size and regularly distributed ; these 

 spines are somewhat conical in shape, but truncated at the 

 tip and constricted at the base, with the sides longitu- 

 dinally furrowed. The spines of the lower surface are 



