The Eckinodermaia of Jhew (Brunsivick 43 
Distribution^, {a) General; — Low-water mark to GIO 
fathoms. From Massachusetts Bay, northward to Smith 
Sound and all around the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans 
to coasts of the British Islands and France, Spitzbergen and 
Barents Sea, and possibly Behring’s Straits. 
{h) In N. B. tmters ; — Grand Manan, rare and small on 
shelly bottoms in corralline zone, Stinipson, (D). Bay of 
Fundy, not uncommon, low water to forty-five fathoms, rocky 
bottoms, Verrill, (L). Eastport, low water to fifteen fathoms, 
Verrill, (N). Pendleton’s Island, on reefs; L’Etang, fine speci- 
mens, stony bottoms, Ganong, (X). Bradelle Bank and deeper 
parts of Gulf of St. Lawrence, Whiteaves, (P). 
This is one of the most beautiful and attractive of all our Starfishes, 
being rivalled in these respects only by the “Cushion-Star,” {Goniaster 
phrggiana). Its many regularly-radiating symmetrical rays, its pretty 
tufts of brush-like spines which cover its upper surface, and its always 
bright and often variable colors, are features which give it pre-eminence 
among its kindred. 
It grows sometimes to a diameter of eleven inches, though it com- 
monly is not more than from four to six. It may have any number of 
rays from ten to fifteen (though most frequently there are eleven, 
twelve or thirteen), each of which is fiattened, tapers uniformly from 
base to tip and is equal in length to from one-half to the whole diameter 
of the disk. The ambulacral furrows are broad and contain two rows 
of tube-feet. The spinulation of this species is peculiar and very char- 
acteristic. The animal seems at first sight to be almost covered with 
tufts of slender spines, but a little study shows that they may all be re- 
ferred to a few simple systems. All over the limestone network of the 
upper surface, both on arms and disk, are prominent club-shaped pro- 
cesses (running approximately in lines on the arms, but scattered 
irregularly on the disk), each of which bears on its summit a brush-like 
tuft or group of from eighteen to thirty slender articulated spiuelets, 
which are about as long as the clusters are far apart. Upon the under sur- 
face, on each side of the ambulacral furrows, there occur two series of 
these clusters, both having all the spines of each single cluster in one 
plane. But the inner row, with its three to four spinelets to a cluster, 
has the plane of all the clusters parallel to the longitudinal axis of the 
furrow, while the outer row, having five to seven spinelets to a cluster, 
has the planes o:^ these clusters at right angles to that axis. The inner 
series afford a protection to the furrow, being quite long enough to cover 
it when extended to meet from the two sides. The mouth plates, cap- 
ping the inner angles where the rays meet, are large and sub-triangular 
