A REVIEW OF THE CEPHALOPODS OF WESTERN NORTH 



AMERICA. 



By S. STILLMAN BERRY, 

 Stanford University, California. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The region covered by the present report embraces the western shores of North 

 America between Bering Strait on the north and the Coronado Islands on the south, 

 together with the immediately adjacent waters of Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean. 

 No attempt is made to present a monograph nor even a complete catalogue of the species 

 now living within this area. The material now at hand is inadequate to properly repre- 

 sent the fauna of such a vast region, and the stations at which anything resembling 

 extensive collecting has been done are far too few and scattered. Rather I have merely 

 endeavored to bring out of chaos and present under one cover a r^sum^ of such work as 

 has already been done, making the necessary corrections wherever possible, and adding 

 accounts of such novelties as have been brought to my notice. 



Descriptions are given of all the species known to occur or reported from within 

 our limits, and these have been made as full and accurate as the facilities available to 

 me would allow. I have hoped to do this in such a way that students, particularly 

 in the Western States, will find it unnecessary to have continual access to the widely 

 scattered and often unavailable literature on the subject. In a number of cases, however, 

 the attitude adopted must be understood as little more than provisional in its nature, 

 and more or less extensive revision is to be expected later, especially in the case of the 

 large and difficult genus Polypus, which here attains a development scarcely to be sur- 

 passed anywhere. 



In dealing with genera or higher groups I have nowhere endeavored to give com- 

 plete diagnoses, but mention is made of such of their more salient characteristics as 

 may serve for at least their temporary recognition by the student unfamiliar wdth 

 cephalopods. 



It has been an unfortunate fact that almost all the work on West American cephalo- 

 pods has been more fragmentar}' and desultory than done with an idea to a careful eluci- 

 dation of the fauna. Some of the early descriptions are so unsatisfactory that it would 



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85079°— Bull. 30—12 18 



