Chap. IY. 



MELITA MESSALINA. 



27 



I cannot refrain from taking this opportunity of re- 

 marking that (so far as appears from Spence Bate's 

 catalogue), for two different kinds of males {Orchestia 

 telluris and sijhicola) which live together in the forests 

 of New Zealand,, only one form of female is known, and 

 hazardirg the supposition that we have here a similar 

 case. It does not seem to me to be probable that two 

 nearly allied species of these social Amphipoda should 

 occur mixed together under the same conditions of life. 



As the males of several species of Melita are distin- 

 guished by the powerful unpaired clasp-forceps, the 

 females of some 

 other species of the 

 same genus are 

 equally distinguish- 

 ed from all other 

 Amphipoda by the 

 circumstance that 

 in them a peculiar 

 apparatus is de- 

 veloped wdiich fa- 

 cilitates their being 

 held by the male. 

 The coxal lamellse 

 of the penultimate pair of feet are produced into hook- 

 like processes, of which the male lays hold with the 



^ Fig. 10. Coxal lamella of the penultimate pair of feet of the male (a), 

 and coxal lamella, .with the three following joints of the same pair of 

 feet of the female (&) of Melita Messalina, magn. 45 diam. 



Fig. 11. Coxal lamella of the same pair of feet of the female of 

 M. insatiabilis. 



. // / 



Figs. 10 and 11.* 



l^ 



