ASTROPECTEN. 



123 



arrangement of the ambulacral bones ; fig. 2 c, the surface of one of the marginal plates, 

 magnified, with the small tubercles on its surface ; fig. 2 d, the mode of articulation of the 

 marginal plates with the row of stout spines arming their posterior border ; fig. 2 e, one 

 of these spines magnified, and showing its articulation to the tubercle. 



ASTROPECTEN PlIILLIPSII ? PI. X, Ct, fig. 2. 



Rays five, short, tapering to an acute point ; border thick and quite straight ; inter- 

 mediate angles obtuse ; marginal plates moderately large, nearly quadrate, about fifty 

 around the border of each ray; ventral plates only exposed, the outer border of each 

 armed with short, stout, thorn-like spines ; ventral portion of the disc wide ; ambulacral 

 furrows broad. 



Diiiiensioiis. — Breadth of the disc, one inch and a quarter; diameter of the body, 

 from ray point to ray point, three and a half inches ; proportionate diameter of the disc 

 to the length of a ray, one and a quarter to one and a half inches. 



This Star-fish was figured in ' Loudon's Magazine of Natural History' for 1829, 

 vol. ii, p. 73, and was thus noticed by a Yeovil correspondent, August 21st, 182S: — 

 " I send you a drawing of the Fossil Asieria found at Horsington, by the Rev. James 

 Hooper, Rector of Stawell. It was taken from a stratum of Cornbrash, and is a very 

 perfect specimen. The sketch and the figure is of the exact size of the original." Being 

 most anxious to obtain the original specimen, in order to give a better drawing of this 

 beautiful Star-fish, with details of its structure, I commissioned a friend to make 

 inquiries in the neighbourhood about the fossil, for since the discovery of the specimen 

 Mr. Hooper had died, and his family had left. The collection, I learned, had been taken to 

 Ireland, and I regret to add that I have been unable to trace the specimen. I am, 

 therefore, under the necessity of reproducing the original figure from Loudon, more with 

 the view of inducing geologists living near Yeovil to search the Cornbrash of that locality 

 for other specimens of this Star-fish than for any scientific value in the figure itself. I 

 have provisionally referred this species to Asiropcden PliiUiim 'i, as it resembles that form 

 more than any other yet discovered. 



AsTROPECTEN HuxLEYi, WricjU, nov. sp. PI. VIII, fig. 1 a, b, c, d. 



Rays five, broad, gently bent, with sloping borders ; intermediate angles obtuse ; 

 marginal plates quadrate, elongated transversely ; surface covered with small, flattened 

 tubercles, those on the ventral series supporting short, spatulate spines ; several, longer, 

 thorn-like spines project from their posterior border ; ambulacral furrows wide ; the small 



