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THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
omitted from the category which have representatives in other areas at depths less than 
1000 fathoms. The latter occurrences have, for the sake of brevitv, not been referred 
to in the present notes. 
“ It may be remarked that the distribution of the deep-water Asterids fully supports 
the views already propounded by Mr. Murray that abyssal depths near to continents are 
more prolific in the number of genera and variety of forms than are similar depths in 
mid ocean remote from land. 
“ Mention only can be made here of the fact that a further and special interest attaches 
to the abyssal forms living under these conditions of isolation, on account of their 
furnishing a more striking presentment of archaic and permanent pseudembryonic 
characters than any other recent Asterids with which we have hitherto been acquainted. 
“ It is scarcely necessary to state that the importance of the collection is not confined 
to the deep-water Asterids only, as many valuable additions have been made to the fauna 
inhabiting much shallower waters than those referred to in the foregoing notes, and 
several interesting new genera have been discovered. Amongst these may be named 
Pholidaster, a form allied to Zoroaster, of which two species were dredged in the Malay 
Archipelago in depths between 100 and 130 fathoms. It differs from the latter genus in 
having peculiar naked primary plates on the disk and along the median radial line, 
margined by flat, skin-covered squamules ; the other plates being covered with similar 
uniform squamules, and the ventro-laterals with regularly-disposed, small, delicate, 
elongate, and slightly flattened spinelets. 
“ Peribolaster is an interesting form obtained off the western coast of Patagonia at 
Station 304 in a depth of 45 fathoms. This Asterid is at first sight suggestive of a large 
species of Kor ethr aster , but is readily distinguished by the reticulated abactinal skeleton, 
composed of cruciform ossicles ; by the fasciculi, which upon the rays have seldom more 
than four spinelets in each, being enveloped in a membranous sheath ; and by the immense 
madreporiform body. 
“ Leptogonaster is a handsome Goniasterid genus with large thin pentagonal disk, 
slightly inflated ; and well produced flat tapering rays with a widely rounded interbrachial 
angle. The marginal plates form a bevelled angular margin, with three or four short conical 
spinelets at the line of junction of the superior and inferior series, in the curve of the 
angle, but decreasing in number outwards. The whole of the abactinal surface is 
granulated and the plates are marked out by very numerous papulae. A few peculiar 
pincer-formed sessile pedicellarise are found here and there on the surface. Actinal 
interradial areas covered with membrane through which the thin hexagonal plates are 
hardly visible ; each of those in the series immediately behind the adambulacral plates 
bearing a large well-developed tubercle, which is greatly diminished in size or wholly 
wanting in the other plates of the area. The armature of the adambulacral plates 
consists of a semicircular furrow series of five or six radiating spines with one equal- 
