ASTROPIIIÜRA KAWAMURAI. 



227 



them arc distinctly above it. They arc possibly nothing else than 

 scales of the first oral tentacles. 



Ventral arm-plates in each interradius number 8 or 9, all situated 

 within the limit of the pentagonal body. 7 or 8 pairs of tentacles are 

 present in each radius, being also confined in their occurence to the 

 pentagonal body. The first pair of them are very large, and are homolo- 

 gous with the second oral tentacles of other Ophiurans, belonging, as 

 the)' do, to the same arm-joint together with the first ventral arm-plates 

 and adorai shields. All the tentacle pores, except the outermost one or 

 two, arc provided with one or two scales. Every two successive ten- 

 tacle pores arc separated from each other by a ridge (erroneously 

 considered by SLADEN to be " ambulacural plate") of the basal or 

 adradial parts of the lateral arm plate, which belongs to the same 

 joint as the outer of the two pores. 



The free distal parts of arms outside the pentagonal body are 

 very abortive, being devoid of any dorsal and ventral arm-plates as 

 well as of tentacle pores. There is a single, very small arm spine 

 on each lateral arm-plate, though on the first one or two free joints, 

 there occur two or three spines. In some radii, indications are not 

 wanting of the first free arm-joint being in the process of being taken 

 up into the pentagonal body. 



Colour in alcohol : whitish, or light yellow ; central, radiais, radial 

 shields and the inner parts of ventral interbrachial spaces bluish gray. 



Locality : Okinosé, a submarine bank off Misaki in the Sagami 

 Sea. Depth about 330 fathoms. 



The present species differs from the genotype, A. pennini SLADEN, 

 chiefly in the very regular arrangement of plates on the dorsal surface 

 of the pentagonal body ; in the larger central plate ; in the much 

 smaller and quite regular infrabasals ; in the much narrower basais 

 and intcrradials being raised so as to form a regular symmetrical 

 system of ridges ; in the radial shields forming a pair being 

 scarcely in direct contact with each other instead of overlapping ; in 



