RECORDS OF W.A. MUSEUM. [ z 55 
relatively much shorter than is usual in that genus. Several of the 
specimens show by their unequal development that reproduction by 
fission is normal for the species. 
OPHIOCREAS MELAMBAPHES, 1 sp. nov. 
Rays 5. Disk about 6.5 mm. in diameter, with arms about 
120 mm. long and 2 mm. thick. Entire animal covered with a 
thick smooth skin, through which, in dried specimens, the radial 
shields and side arm-plates are revealed. The radial shields are 
about 3 mm. long by one mm. broad, and are perfectly smooth, 
though slightly swollen. There are no calcareous granules m the 
skin of the dorsal surface on either disk or arms. Teeth 4 or 5, the 
lowest often displaced and somewhat deformed. Oral papillae 
wanting. No oral shields or madreporite. First two pairs of the 
very small tentacle-pores bare, but all subsequent pores guarded by 
two spine-like tentacle-scales of which the inner is a trifle the longer 
and is about half a millimetre long. Genital slits very small, less 
than a millimetre long, oblique, cresentic ; two in each mterbrachial 
space. 
Colour, deep purple or purplish black above and on sides, but 
actinal surface of disk and arms dull cream colour. 
Off Jurien Bay, W.A., 80-100 fms. Two specimens, No. 4,925. 
The smaller specimen is the Type. 
Although this species resembles 0 . silogcie, Koehler, in many 
characteristic features, it is distinguishable from that species at a 
glance by its different proportions, different tentacle-scales and 
strikingly different colour. Doderlein does not consider the charac- 
ter by which Astroschema differs from Ophiocreas sufficiently con- 
stant to warrant the maintenance of the two genera, but I am 
inclined to think that while our definitions will need to be readjusted, 
the two groups had better be retained. The present species is a 
typical Ophiocreas so far as its external covering is concerned. 
1 Gr. melambaphes — dark-dyed. 
