1917.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 3 



specimen, moreover, has the second pair of arms the longest, the 

 first come next, while the third and fourth are subequal and still a 

 little shorter; but as appears from Verrill's measurements {loc. cit.), 

 these proportions are liable to variation. 



"The point of greatest interest in connection with this specimen 

 is its capture so far away from the original habitat of the species, 

 but this, as will appear in the sequel, is not without parallel (see 

 p. 223)." 



Believing that Hoyle's own notes, more particularly the observa- 

 tions on the hectocotylus, are a self-evident disproof of his identifica- 

 tion, I recently (1916, p. 49) expressed my dissent from his conclu- 

 sions and proposed the name Moschites chaUe7igeri for the Kermadcc 

 Island species. By way of more completely establishing the point 

 in question I have obtained photographs both of the type specimen 

 of Eledone verrucosa Verrill in the Museum of Comparative Zoology 

 and of the "Challenger" specimen which is now the type of M. 

 challengeri.^ From these it would appear that w^iile the general 

 f acies of the two species is indeed quite similar, the differences between 

 them are none the less w^ell marked. At the time the Challenger 

 report was written, the great importance of the hectocotylus in 

 classification was not so fully realized as at the present time, but 

 reliance need not be had upon this alone. The curious stellate 

 tubercles, which occur scattered over the dorsal surface of both forms, 

 and which undoubtedly furnished the principal cause for their 

 confusion, are in the case of M. challengeri much more numerous, 

 more closely placed, and have a more general distribution over the 

 body than in the Atlantic species. Where with M. verrucosa one 

 counts but 13 or 14 of these tubercles in a line running transversely 

 across the middle of the back, in the Kermadec species there are 

 easily twice as many; and where in verrucosa the tubercles extend 

 only slightly past the boundary between the head and umbrella 

 (see Verrill's second figure), leaving most of the outer surface of the 

 arms and umbrella smooth, in M. challengeri the tubercles extend 

 down over the entire upper portion of the umbrella and even well 

 out upon the basal portions of the arms. I think there is no doubt 

 that a direct comparison of the specimens themselves would reveal 

 other and doubtless more far-reaching differences, but those 



1 For the photographs of Eledone rerrueosa I am indebted to Mr. Samuel 

 Henshaw, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology; for those of M. challengeri 

 to Mr. G. C. Robson, of the British Museum (Natural History), South 

 Kensington. 



