196 Bulletin, Vanderbilt Marine Museum, Vol. IV 



in all three specimens is decidedly dorsoventrally compressed, ovoid, 

 somewhat quadrate in contour, with the head but little narrower than 

 the body, not separated by a neck. The optical lobes are prominent, 

 the eyes of moderate size, with a single wart above each. The mantle 

 aperture is somewhat narrowed, the siphon very short, tapered, with 

 small aperture. The arms decrease in length in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, 

 pairs 1, 2 and 3 being almost equal and 4 about 5 mm. shorter than 3. 

 The suckers are in double series, large, round, diminishing in size dis- 

 tally. The arcs of the web are of approximately subequal depth 

 equivalent to about one-third of the arm length, except in the ventral 

 pair, where it is minutely shallower. The entire surface is very soft, 

 with fine punctae, which, under the microscope, show as papillae, 

 forming an approximate reticulation. There are many large chro- 

 matophores on the body and web, especially on the dorsal surface. 

 The beak is very strong. 



Verrill suggests that this may be the young of some other species. 

 Robson (1929) suggests that it may be the young of 0. rugosus. Pos- 

 sibly so, but it appears distinctly different from the many hundreds of 

 young Octopus rugosus the present writer has observed in the Florida 

 Keys and hatched in her aquaria. 



References : Octopus pictus Verrill, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. XI, 

 p. 112, pi. 3, fig. 3, 1883 (preoccupied de Blainville, 1828, p. 8.). 

 Octopus verrilli Hotle, Rept. Voy. "Challenger" Zool., XVI, p. 93, 

 1886. — Robson, Mon. of Cephalopoda in British Museum, p. 162, 

 1929. 



Genus: scaeurgus Troschel. 

 Scaeurgus unicirrhus (delle Chiaje, Mss., 1838) D'Orbigny, 1840. 



Plate 123. 

 Type : Not traced. 



Distribution : Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, Hawaiian Islands, 

 Japan. Shallow water to 178 fms. 



Material examined: One specimen, dredged in 100 fms., off Cape 

 Bon Tunis, 9y 2 miles E. by S. y 2 S., Mediterranean Sea, July 19, 1927, 

 by the "Am." 



Color: The living octopus is a clear light green on the upper sur- 

 face with brownish maculations, fading into a paler hue, with bluish 

 iridescence near the margins of the arms. 



