60 Transactions. 



plates set on edge." This they described as a new genus Kuria, having 

 Bircenna as its nearest ally, and, as they were not satisfied with the position 

 of the latter under the Phliadidce, they simply marked the genus " incertce 

 sedis.'' 



Mr. Walker wrote to me at the time he was examining his Kuria, giving 

 the points in which it differed from Bircenna, and asking for further infor- 

 mation as to the uropoda and telson, but as my original dissection of the 

 terminal segments of the pleon has not been preserved, and I had at the 

 time no other specimens available, I could only refer to my figure, which 

 showed an undivided triangular telson. 



In 1906 Monsieur Edouard Chevreux established a new genus Wandelia 

 for a small r.mphipod found by the French Antarctic Expedition (1903-5) at 

 Port Charcot and Wandel Island, which he said came very close to Bircenna, 

 but differed from it in the uropoda, and in having the telson divided to 

 the base. He placed the genus in the Phliantidce, which, however, he wrote 

 Phliasidce, but pointed out that the completely divided telson separated 

 it from all the other genera of the family. M. Chevreux apparently had 

 not seen Mr. Walker's paper, for he makes no reference to Kuria. 



As Wandelia evidently resembled Bircenna even more closely than 

 Kuria did, though like the latter it possessed a completely divided telson, 

 I was very anxious to get further specimens to see if my original description 

 was really correct. I did not succeed in doing this till November, 1908, 

 when I secured another small specimen from Lyttelton Harbour, and was 

 able to examine the point carefully. The last segments of the pleon are 

 greatly shortened, and it is difficult to make out the exact condition of the 

 last segment and of its appendage, but I find that the telson is distinctly 

 formed of two parts, and is consequently in harmony with that of Kuria and 

 Wandelia, and I therefore hasten to make the correction. So far as I can 

 make out, each half is as deep as broad, and is triangular in vertical section 

 as well as horizontally, and consequently the one half, which alone is shown 

 in my figure, is nearly symmetrical when seen from above, and therefore 

 aroused no suspicion that it was only half the telson ; and Mr. Stebbing, 

 who dissected a specimen when preparing his generic diagnosis, published 

 in the Trans. Linn. Soc, Zool. vii, p. 421, in 1899, seems to have been 

 equally unaware that the telson had been incorrectly described. 



There can be no doubt that Wandelia is identical with Bircenna, and, 

 indeed, Wandelia crassipes is specifically not very different from Bircenna 

 fulva. The genus Kuria differs in a few points — e.g., in having the body 

 laterally compressed and the 3rd uropoda less modified — and should perhaps 

 be regarded as a separate genus, though evidently very closely alhed to 

 Bircenna. 



After mentioning that Stebbing had placed Bircenna in the family 

 PhliantidcB, Walker says that " it seems somewhat out of place with such 

 genera as Pereionotus, Iphinofus, &c." In general appearance it certainlv 

 looks very unlike these dorso-yentrally flattened genera, and Kuria, which 

 is somewhat laterally compressed, is still more unlike them, and both genera 

 differ from the rest of the family in having the telson double or deeply cleft. 

 In other respects, however, they agree closely with Stebbing's diagnosis 

 of the family. The genus Phlias, from which the family takes its name, 

 also differs greatly in general appearance from the genera named above, 

 and resembles Kuria in having the body somewhat laterally compressed ; 

 but, as a small amount of lateral compression in the one case and of dorso- 

 ventral compression in the other make the general aspect of the two forms 



