131 
prove to be identical I must maintain that sufficient proof of their 
identity has not yet been given, and for the present the only safe 
course is to keep them separate. Also the New Zealand form ought 
to be kept separate for the present, the differences pointed out 
above pointing more in the direction of its being a separate species 
than of its being simply identical with O. profundi. 
One of the two specimens from off North Cape differs in the 
dorsal plates being in contact in the larger part of the arms, thus 
having a truncated inner angle, and also in the ventral plates being 
more broadly in contact than is otherwise the case, and, upon the 
whol?, somewhat different in shape from those of the other spec¬ 
imens (Fig. 13.1 arid 4). I do not think, however, that this can be 
regarded as more than an individual variation, especially since the 
said features are more conspicuous on one arm than on the others. 
But attention must be called to this form, which may possibly ulti- 
mately turn out to be another, distinet species. The two specimens 
from off North Cape have a few narrow, dark bands on the arms. 
, “Ophiaetis nigrescens' Hutton. 
Through the kindness of Mr. W. R. B. Oliver I have received 
a specimen of an Ophiurid from the Dominion Museum, Welling- 
ton, which is, according to a handwritten label by Mr. Farquhar, 
the type specimen of Hutton’s ''Ophiocoma nigrescens''. Since 
Hutton did not describe any ‘‘Ophiocoma nigrescens'', but only an 
“Ophiaetis nigrescens'\ it would seem probable that this is the type 
specimen of the latter, to the description of which it corresponds 
fairly well. It is a very poor specimen of Ophiocoma schoenleini 
M. & Tr. — That it is not from the New Zealand seas is evident; 
most probably the specimens have come from Fiji, as had also the 
“Ophiothrix coerulea'' of Hutton. 
Herewith the ''Ophiaetis nigrescens'', which has for so long a time 
puzzled the echinologists, may well disappear both from the list of 
Ophiurids and from the New Zealand fauna. 
9* 
