OF SOUTIIERX INDIA. 
9 
mouth is transversely suh-ovato or kidney-shaped, situated before the lower middle, 
with raised lips ; no jaws are present ; anus at the posterior, truucate end ; a post-oral 
space is always marked on the lower side betwecu the two posterior ambulacra, 
which are produced from the apex to the mouth ; apical apparatus composed of 
four perforated genital plates, the right anterior of which is, as usually, the madre- 
porifoi'in. 
Two sub-families arc usually distiuguished, AXAXcnrnx.n and the 
In the first group, which is by some authors also separated as a special family 
under the name Ecjiixocoridac, the ambulacra arc perfectly open towards the periphery 
of the test, with the exeeptiou of the impair one, the other four lie flat on the 
surface, and the apical a^jparatus (except in StenotnaJ is elongated, the anterior 
genital plates being sometimes quite separate by intervening ocular plates from the 
posterior pair. Two genera are represented of this sub-family in the South Indian 
cretaceous rocks — Ilolasier with one, and Cardiasler with two species. 
The srATAXGiXfE have the petals situated in more or less marked depressions ; the 
anterior one is continued to the mouth, the others are suh-petaloid, sometimes nearly 
closed on the upper side, or the j^orcs become, when continued further on, much less 
distinct and much smaller at the ]^criphery. The apical disc is short, the four genital 
plates being in immediate contact ; the majority of the genera have fascicles. Of 
this sub-family agaiir two genera occur in South India — Epiaster with one, and 
Uemiusler with eleven sjiecies. 
Liitken, in his Bidrarj til Kundslmb on Echinoderme in 18G1, gives a slightly 
revised classification of the SrArAxaiDA, according to the presence or absence or 
form of the fasciokc, but the few alterations proposed do not appear to me to be of 
any essential importance. 
Of the fifteen si)eeies of South Indian cretaceous Spataxgitue, I have, strangely 
enough, not been able to identify a single one with a known European or American 
form, hut there arc a few exhibiting noteworthy relations which Avill be noticed in due 
course. Representatives of the family are scarcely known from older beds than 
cretaceous, and to this formation also by far the greatest number of sjAceies is peculiar. 
The AXAxcirrrixi (about 50 species) are with very few exceptions all cretaceous ; 
of the sPATAxaixi (about 800 species) nearly more than one-third arc cretaceous, 
nearly an equal number is tertiary, and the remainder recent. 
A peculiarity of the spataxoixas consists in the occasional presence of certain 
narrow zones on the test, on Avhich the tubercles generally distributed over the 
surface are absent or merely represented by fine granules ; these zones have been 
named fasciolae, of which live kinds are distinguished : l,fasc. peripelala, surrounding 
the terminations of the petals; %fasG. Interim, including the apex and the anterior- 
petals only ; Z,fai5C. marginalis, sui-rounding the test at or near the periphery of 
the half height; A<,f(isc. lalercdis, running from the former posteriorly, and 5, fasc. 
amdis, surrounding the anal opening. Several genera arc distinguished according 
to the presence or absence of these fascioles. 
( 79 ) 
