THE STARFISHES OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
1005 
Actinal interradial areas are much reduced and are paved each with 4 small roundish plates, which 
bear spinelets very similar to those covering adjacent inferomarginals. 
Mouth plates are prominent, the armature, unfortunately, having been largely destroyed. The 
marginal spinelets are rather slender, slightly flattened, the innermost 2 or 3 of each plate forming at 
ea9h mouth angle a horizontal fan of 4 to 6 teeth, of which the median are longest. 
Tube feet large, with an incipient conical sucker at end, easily distinguishable from the rest of 
the foot. 
Madreporic body is not visible superficially; hidden by the paxillse. 
Color in life: Paxillar area of distal half of arms vinaceous cinnamon; remainder of arms, and 
disk, fawn color. The dorsal integument, largely hidden by the regular and ornate paxillse, is bright 
vermilion, the color being visible between the spinelets of the paxillse. Spines of superomarginal 
plates, orange buff. Marginal plates, inferomarginal spines, and entire actinal surface, light buff pink. 
Color in alcohol bleached yellowish. 
Locality: Station 4168, vicinity of Bird Island, 20 fathoms, coral, shells, and foraminifera. Bottom 
rough. 
Only a single specimen of this handsome species was secured, and that unfortunately, is not 
perfect. I have felt some misgivings in referring it to polyacanthus, having been obliged to depend 
wholly on the original description. In proportions the specimen agrees most nearly with Muller and 
Troschel’s description of armatus (System der Asteriden, p. 71), from Japan, which Sladen and others 
consider the same as polyacanthus, the type of which came from the Red Sea. The descriptions of 
these two species certainly differ in many points, and presumably the types do also, but in view of 
the opinion of Sladen and Perrier I have accepted the present name. I have given a full description, 
with figures, that there may be no mistaking the particular form referred to, whether the name be 
correct or not. 
This species may be readily distinguished from others of the genus inhabiting Hawaiian waters 
by the row of erect superomarginal spines, the second and sometimes the third superomarginal lacking 
the spine; and by the stout spines of the inferomarginals, arranged on each plate in a series of three 
or four. 
Astropecten polyacanthus has a wide distribution, extending from the Red Sea to Zanzibar, Ceylon, 
Hongkong, the coasts of China and Japan (Kobe, Yokohama), New Holland, Admiralty Islands, Fiji 
Islands, and Port Jackson, Australia. It is a shallow-water species exclusively, ranging from 2 to 50 
fathoms, the usual depths at which it is found being 25 fathoms and under. The station at Bird Island 
is the most eastern record for the Pacific, very materially extending the known range of the species. 
Astropecten velitaris Von Martens. 
PI. i, fig. 2; pi. ii, figs. 2, 2a. 
Astropecten velitaris ~V on Martens, Archiv f. Naturgesch., Berlin, jahrg. XXXI, bd. I, 1865, p. 360. 
Rays 5. R=25.5 mm.; r=7 mm. R=3.6r. Breadth of ray at base, 8.5 mm. 
Rays stout, very gently tapering to a blunt point. Interbrachial arcs open, forming a nearly right 
angle. Disk of medium size. Epiproctal prominence present. Disk slightly swollen. 
Abactinal paxillar area compact, the paxillse being arranged in transverse rows on the rays. 
Paxillse consist of 1 or 2 central rounded clavate spinelets or elongated granules, surrounded by 8 to 
11 similar ones, arranged in a rosette. Papilliform granules of the peripheral series are not always 
equal in size on the same paxilla, 2 or more being slenderer than the others. Paxillse become much 
smaller at the end of rays. 
Superomarginal plates, 17 in number from interradial line to tip of ray, are massive, about as high 
as broad, and encroach conspicuously upon abactinal paxillar area, forming a rounded margin to ray. 
The first plate bears a short, erect, rather slender, tapering, sharp-pointed spinule. Plates are covered 
with small papilliform granular spinelets, capillary in the fasciolar grooves, becoming squamiform on 
the exposed surface of plates. The fifth to seventeenth plates each bear a short stubby conical tubercle 
or enlarged granule on the angle between the lateral and dorsal superficies of the plate. The second to 
fourth plates, inclusive, do not bear these. 
Inferomarginal plates form an arched bevel to actinal surface and extend very slightly beyond 
superomarginals, laterally. Each plate bears an oblique row of 2 sharp, slender, often slightly curved, 
