286 DEEP-SEA ECHINODERMS 



by the Norwegian poet Asbjornsen, in Hardanger 

 Fjord, and was for some time supposed to be con- 

 fined to the North Atlantic, but it has since been 

 found to have a wide range in deep water. All our 

 specimens of this fragile starfish, having been dredged 

 up quickly by means of the wire rope, are particularly 

 badly broken : I therefore appeal to my successors in 

 the Investigator to pray that the rope may be very 

 slowly reeled in when the ship is dredging on known 

 Brisinga-ground, in the hope of getting specimens 

 suitable for the draughtsman. 



Of the typical cold-water genus Aste^nas, one 

 species, very like the North Atlantic Asterias giacialis, 

 is known to exist at depths (120-250 fathoms) in the 

 Andaman Sea, where the temperature is between 50° 

 and 60° Fahr. The genus Palmipes, which like- 

 wise belongs to the temperate zone, also occurs in the 

 Andaman Sea at depths of over 100 fathoms. 



With the exception of the Porcellanasteridce, which 

 appear to feed on mud for the sake of any organic 

 nutriment that it may contain, the starfishes of the 

 deep sea seem, like their shallow-water relatives, to 

 live largely on mollusks, though the remains of 

 prawns and amphipods have been found in the 

 stomachs of some of them. In fact, the only marked 

 difference between the abyssal starfishes and those 

 living near shore seems to be one of colour, the 

 colouring of the former being most wonderfully brilliant. 



