WEST INDIAN STARFISHES 95 



but three or four of the most proximal ones of the outer row, and 

 especially the first, become larger, higher and more obtuse, and 

 stand a little farther back from the inner row, the first pair be- 

 coming the epioral spines on the small jaws. The inner spines 

 on these few proximal plates also become a little more elongated. 

 About eight somewhat more slender spines in a continuous row, 

 form the peroral armature of the angle of the combined jaw 

 plates. 



The granules in the adoral area are larger and higher than 

 elsewhere. 



The ocular plate is small, roundish or broad-ovate, convex or 

 mammiform, not bilobed and not granulated. It is turned up- 

 ward. 



The madreporic plate is large, situated below the basal inter- 

 radial plate and nearly fills the space between two large basal 

 radials, one of which it joins. It is covered with very numerous 

 fine, even, radiating and bifurcating gyri. 



The disk is covered with a group of large, unequal, very con- 

 vex rounded plates, like the radial plates adjacent. Ten of the 

 larger of these can be referred to the basal radial and interradial 

 plates. These enclose an irregular group of about five larger 

 and several smaller plates. The diameter of the larger plates is 

 about 4™°^ ; of the madreporic plate, 5°^™. 



I have also examined a young specimen in the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology, labeled as this species by Perrier, and 

 taken by the Blake, at station 100, off Moro Light, Cuba, in 250- 

 400 fathoms. 



This agrees well with larger specimens, of medium size, taken 

 near the same place by the Bahama Expedition, but its adambu- 

 lacral spines are relately smaller, and less differentiated from 

 the adjacent coarser granules. The granules of the inferomar- 

 ginal plates are more unequal, there being two or three rows of 

 distinctly larger ones on the otherwise evenly granulated sur- 

 face. 



These characters seem to be due to the immaturity of this 

 specimen. The dorsal plates are also relately less swollen than 

 in the larger examples. 



It was dredged by the Albatross, in 130 fathoms, off West 

 Florida, and in 21 fathoms, off Pensacola (large specimen de- 



