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BULLETIN OP THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
would seem to be fairly common on the Cuban coast. Like Professor McMurrich, in the paper just 
referred to, I have always considered this fact as strongly suggestive of its identity with one or other 
of the species established by the earlier actinologists. It can scarcely be expected that a form so 
abundantly represented around three of the islands of the Greater Antilles would be absent from the 
Lesser Antilles, whence Lesueur and Duchassaing & Michelotti obtained their types. 
But uncertainties arise when it is attempted to compare it step by step with the descriptions of 
these writers and with the determinations of them made by subsequent students. Of the species to be 
considered are Asteractis floseulifera (Lesueur), A. conquilega (Duchassaing & Michelotti). A. formosa 
(Duchassaing & Michelotti), and A. bradleyi (Verrill). McMurrich (1889, p. 108) lias described from 
the Bermudas, under the term Oulactis fasciculate,, a Phvllactid which Verrill (1899, p. 45) regards as 
the Actinia floseulifera, of Lesueur, and of which Verrill later gives a figure (1900, pi. nxvnr, fig. 1) 
under the title Actinactis floseulifera, the generic term being evidently a typographical error for Aster- 
actis. Both Verrill and McMurrich have seen specimens of the Jamaica Asteractis and agree (in lilt.) 
that it is quite different from the species referred to above. 
The form which Duchassaing & Michelotti (1860, p. 46, pi. vii, figs. 7, 11) have described and 
figured as Oulactis floseulifera may perhaps be taken as referable to the present one, though their 
fig. 7 but indifferently represents the species when seen alive. A. Andres (1883) does not accept 
Duchassaing & Michelotti’s identification of their form with the A. floseulifera of Lesueur, and 
separates 0. floseulifera as a distinct species, Oulactis foliosa. McMurrich (1889, p. 56) described and 
figured as the Oulactis floseulifera of bot h Lesueur and of Duchassaing & Michelotti, and the 0. foliosa 
of Andres, a single specimen which he found buried in the sand up to the tentacles on the shore of 
the island of New Providence, Bahamas. He described it thus: “The fronds, situated on the periphery 
of the disc, are in a single cycle, one surmounting each longitudinal row of verrucse, there being 
altogether apparently 24.” McMurrich (1898, p. 232) has since had the advantage of studying 
numerous specimen's from Cuba which he regards as without question representatives of the present- 
species. His opinion therefore of the identity of the present form with the older species of Phyllactidx 
is of special value. He remarks as follows: 
“With none, however, does it seem to agree very closely, though it seems to come nearest to 
0. floseulifera of Duchassaing & Michelotti (’60). In my original description of 0. floseulifera (’89) 
I took it for granted that Duchassaing & Michelotti’s identification was correct. Andres (’83) thinks 
otherwise and has separated the form described by these authors from Lesueur’s O. floseulifera and 
named it- O. foliosa. Perhaps after all Andres may have been right; the form which I described from 
the Bahamas agrees fairly well as to coloration with Lesueur’s form, while the present form seems to 
agree more closely with that of Duchassaing & Michelotti. However, the earlier descriptions are 
all too indefinite to make the identification certain and it will perhaps lessen the chances of confusion 
in the future to accept Mr. Duerden’s separation of the present species under the specific name he has 
chosen.” 
The occurrence of only 24 frondose areas at once separates the species from A. expansa, for in 
this 48 are invariably present, except in cases of irregularity. 
The description given by Duchassaing & Michelotti (1860, p. 47) of their Oulactis formosa is very 
incomplete, but the accompanying figures (pi. vii, figs. ’4, 5), showing only 20 tentacles in a single 
cycle, suffice to show that it is widely separated from A. expansa. 
The species seems to bear some resemblance t-o Asteractis bradleyi Verrill. from Panama, the type 
species of the genus (1899, p. 46), though evidently this is a smaller form. Verrill in his original 
description (1869, p. 465) refers to “twelve conspicuous, dark spots, about midway between the 
tentacles and margin, and corresponding with the primary tentacles,” in the drawing accompanying 
the specimens transmitted to him, but is unable to account for them. In Jamaican examples I have 
occasionally met with a similar appearance and found it to be due to a local distension of the papillse. 
It is not a constant feature of the individual. The papillae may afterwards return to their normal 
condition, and no distinction between them and the others is then apparent. • 
In his original account Verrill notes that the frondose areas are of different radial extent-, exactly 
as found in the Jamaican species, but in his later description (1899, p. 46) he makes no reference to 
this, and his figure does not suggest an ordinal disposition. Further, the papillse appear to increase 
in size from within outward in A. bradleyi, though such is not the case in A. expansa. 
