304 



at the base of the mesenteries, and the small ones are scattered 

 all over the basal part of them. 



The wheels measure 40 — 1 20 ^ in diameter. Besides the wheels 

 there are some large, bent rods in the skin. They are interesting 

 in being longer than the largest wheel-diameter and are arranged 

 into ten rather regular rows, one on each side of the ambulacra. 

 In the rows all the rods are parallel and in right angles to the 

 longitudinal axis of the specimen. The rods themselves measure 

 ca. 250 — 270 fi in length, are very slightly curved and have the 

 ends distinctly spinous (Fig. 64. 5) with numerous, small spines. 

 These large rods are also found in the tentacle-stem, but the rods 

 in the digits (Fig. 64. 4) are smaller, ca. 100 ^, and have fewer 

 and larger spines. Besides these large and thick rods, there are 

 some very thin C-shaped rods in the interambulacra (Fig. 64. 6) 

 and in the oral disk. In the gonads there are some few thin rods 

 of the same sort, but they are here not C-shaped (Fig. 64. 7). 



Chiridota stuhlmanni is a very characteristic species, which by 

 the shape and size of the rods and the ciliated funnels is easily 

 separated from all the other hitherto known species. The specimen 

 at hand differs from Lampert's description of Chiridota stuhlmanni 

 in some few characters, for which reason the identification of it is 

 not quite certain. Lam pert states that stuhlmanni differs from 

 rigida and similiar species in having the wheel-papillae "völlig 

 gleichmässig über den ganzen Körper verteilt". This is, as seen 

 from the description, not the case with the specimen at hand. Fur- 

 thermore Lam pert writes about the radial pieces of the calcareous 

 ring: "Nur konnte ich keine Durchbohrungen finden", a marked 

 difference from what is the case with the radiais of the present 

 specimen. Also the presence of the thin C-shaped rods in the 

 interambulacra seems to indicate a specific difference. But in spite 

 of this I do not find it reasonable to separate this single specimen 

 from Lampert's species, with which it quite agrees in the shape 

 and size of the ciliated funnels and the large rods in the skin. 

 Until a reexamination of either Lampert's type-specimen or of 

 specimens from the type-locality Timbatu is made, I do not think 

 it desirable to separate the Fiji-specimen from the species stuhl- 

 manni. 



