1036 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
This is a remarkably large species. The type, if perfect, would measure over 2 feet in diameter. 
It is thus nearly as large as a specimen of L. savignyi, with 9 arms, recorded from Mauritius, the shortest 
ray of which was 350 mm., the longest 370. Prof. F. J. Bell has referred to this specimen as the 
largest starfish on record . a 
Luidia sp. 
In the collection there is a single specimen of a young Luidia, which can not he positively 
determined on account of its small size. R=20 mm. ; r=4 mm. R=5r. Rays 5, very gently tapering; 
abactinal area convex. Paxillse are arranged in 4 regular rows at either side of arm. These would 
apparently have become subquadrate. Those of median portion of arm are round and likewise rather 
regularly arranged. Inferomarginal plates with a single, prominent, slender, slightly flattened spine, 
about as long as width of plate, forming a series along margin of ray. Actinal surface of plate with 
numerous slender spineiets, but none large enough to form a companion spine. Adambulacral 
armature consists of a long, slender, flattened, slightly curved furrow spinelet, and 2 actinal spineiets 
in a regular transverse series, besides 1 or 2 shorter spineiets situated adorally to the latter. Occasion- 
ally a long 2-bladed pedicellaria takes the place of one of these latter spineiets, but as yet pedicellarise 
are rare. The dredge-station record is missing, but the specimen was probably taken from Penguin 
Bank, south of Oahu, in a depth of about 25 fathoms. 
This specimen appears to belong to an undescribed species very closely allied to Luidia forficifer 
Sladen, from Torres Strait, 6 fathoms, and the Arafura Sea near entrance to Torres Strait, 28 fathoms. 
(Sladen, Challenger Asteroidea, p. 260.) 
Luidia brevispina Liitken. 
Luidia brevispina Liitken, Fortsatte kritiske og beskrivende Bidrag til Kundskab on Sostjernerne. <Videnskabelige 
Meddelelser, 1871, p. 288. Perrier, Revision des Stellfirides, 1875, p. 337. 
This species is recorded by Perrier (1. c.) from the Sandwich Islands, where 9 specimens were 
collected by Mr. Ballieu, and received by the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris in 1876. No 
examples were secured by the Albatross Expedition. 
Family PSEUDARCHASTERIDtE Fisher, 1905. 
Pseudarchasterinse Sladen, Challenger Asteroidea, 1889, p. 109; emended. Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad., vol. x, 1899, p. 187. 
Astrogoniinse Perrier, Exped. Scientif. Travailleur et du Talisman, Echinodermes, 1894, pp. 337, 338. 
Pseudarchasteridae Fisher, Bull. Bureau of Fisheries, vol. xxiv, 1904 (1905) , p. 303. 
Genus PSEUDARCHASTER Sladen. 
Pseudarchaster Sladen, in Narr. Challenger Exped., vol. 1 , 1885, p. 617. 
Astrogoniumb Perrier (non Muller and Troschel) Exped. Scientif. Travailleur et d,u Talisman, Echinodermes, 1894, p. 338. 
Key to Hawaiian species of Pseudarchaster. 
a. Rays shorter; no enlarged spinules on the actinal intermediate plates myobrachius 
aa. Rays longer; enlarged spinules on the actinal intermediate plates — jordani 
a Bell, Ann. N. H., ser. 6, vol. in, 1889, p. 222. 
b The substitution of the name Astrogonium for Pseudarchaster Sladen is wholly unnecessary and unwarranted. Astro- 
gonium was first proposed by Muller and Troschel (System der Asteriden, 1842, p. 52) and included 4 genera— Hippasteria 
Gray, Goniaster Agassiz, Pentagonaster Gray, and Tosia Gray — all of which are now recognized and in current use. The 
genus was thus a composite group without a definite type. In 1847 and 1866 Gray used the name in a more restricted 
sense, including forms now referred to Tosia (or to Pentagonaster , according to the point of view), such as Tosia granularis 
(Retzius), and to the Odontasteridx, as Acodontaster miliaris (Gray) Verrill. If it were used at all it would be applied, with 
very questionable propriety, to the group containing the Asterias granularis of Retzius, which belongs to the previously 
described Tosia. But as Astrogonium was an artificial group, a synonym of, say, Hippasteria, or of any one of the other 3 
above-mentioned genera, the name should be discarded for all time, on the ground of “once a synonym, always a 
synonym.” 
However, in 1889 Sladen incorrectly restricted Astrogonium to Gray’s genus Pentagonaster. 
Perrier in 1894 transferred the name to an entirely different group, one unknown to either Muller and Troschel 
or Gray, namely, to Pseudarchaster +Aphroditiasler Sladen. Both of these names are perfectly tenable, and the course 
of Perrier is wholly contrary to the most widely accepted laws of nomenclature. Astrogonium has been used by 
several authors since 1894 in place of Pseudarchaster, the correct name of the group. (See Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad, 
xx, 1899, p. 149.) 
