'Alert' 1881-2

ECHINODEKMATA. 139
10. OpMocoma brevipes.
Peters, Archivfilr Natur. 1852, p. 85 ;
see Lyman, p. 27.
Mr. Lj'man (Prel. List, p. 27) gives as synonyms of this, his own
0. insv.laria (about which there will, I suppose, be no dispute), the
0. ternisjnna of Martens, an unnamed specimen of which, from
the island of Mauritius, has been for many years in the collection of
the British Museum and has for a long time been a source of much
disquiet to myself (I am now persuaded that this is a specimen to
which Dr. von Martens would have given the name ternisjj'ma),
Ophiocoma varieguta and 0. brevisjnnosa of E. A. Smith, from the
island of Rodriguez. I do not know that a more western locality
than the island just named has ever been recorded l)y a zoologist
at any rate, Dr. Haacke did not detect the species among the Ophiurids
collected by Prof. Mtibius in the island of Mauritius *, unless
he has been, as is possible, misled by the definition of 0. squamata
given by M tiller and Troschel ; the three or four lateral spines, the
two teutacle-scales, and the square markings on the upper armplates
might deceive a hasty nomcuclator, but they could not, I
think, mislead any one who refers to the second edition of Lamarck
(vol. iii. ly40), p. 225, where he will find references to the plates
of Link and 0. F. Miiller. Although the species there figured is
regarded by the editors as distinct from 0. squamata, the resemblance
between such an Oi^hiurid as this Ophiocoma and the Ophiothrix
pentapliyUum figured by the two just-mentioned naturalists, is so
very slight that we are forbidden from supposing that the Ophiura
squamata, Lamk. {Opiiiocoma squamata, M. & Tr.), is a near ally of
an Ophiothrix or Ophiothrix-lWa form.
The variations exhibited by this very widely distributed species
are indeed remarkable. It seemed for a time that the larger number
and smaller size of the mouth-papilla) at the inner angles of 0. variegata
and of 0. hrtvispinosa would indicate a certain difference ; but
a difference of quite equal extent can be detected in the mouthorgans
of a single specimen. The hollow square marking on the
upper arm-plates, which, when well developed, seems to give such a
characteristic appearance to the arms of this species, may be replaced
by a black patch, or there may be a transverse bar, or there may be
only the two lines left which run parallel to the long axis of the
arm ; again, there may be spots, or the coloration may be fairly
uniform. The colour of the disk may be pale, spotted, or reticu-
lated; the mouth- shields spotted or uniform in colour.
Levuka, Fiji.
* MiJbius, ' Beitrage zur Meeresfauna der Insel Mauritius ' &c. (Berlin, 1880).
Iq what follows I may seem to speak somewhat harshly of Dr. Haacke's services ;
but I am bound to point out that the list of Ophiurids given on p. 50 of this
work has no scientific value whatever. 0. dentata has been for many years
regarded, first by Lyman (18()5) and since by others, as " only a middling-sized
0. echinata;" the type of 0. aquamata has been lo.st, " and nobody can tell
what it was, though it might have been 0. brevipes." Dr. Haacke makes no
reference to either of these judgments.
;