REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [ 82 ] 
The male has one of the ventral arms (which may be either right or 
left in onr 'species) hectocotylized near the tip, by an enlargement and 
flattening of the bases of the sucker-stalks, while their cups become small 
or abortive. 
The female has oviducts developed on both sides, but they are small 
and simple, opening below the bases of the gills. Two symmetrical nida- 
mental glands, which are comparatively small and simple in our species, 
are situated behind the heart. 
Professor Steenstrup, in the paper last quoted in the above synonymy, 
has given a revision of the Ommastrephes group. He divides the old 
genus Ommastrephes into three genera, viz : I. Illex, which includes 
0. illeeebrosus , with 0. GoindeUi , the closely allied Mediterranean form ; 
II. Todarodes, which includes only the well-known Ommastrephes to- 
darns of the Mediterranean, to which he restores the name sagittatus 
Lamarck, which has been otherwise employed by other authors during 
half a century past; III. Ommatostrephes (restricted), which corre¬ 
sponds exactly with Sthenoteuthis , established by me in a paper pub¬ 
lished several months earlier. (Trans. Conn. Acad., v, p. 222, Febru¬ 
ary, 1880.) In another part of his article he refers to my paper, which 
had been promptly sent to him, but he makes no reference whatever to 
the genus Sthenoteuthis, nor to the species S. megaptera , which, as a spe¬ 
cies, had been described by me still earlier (1878) and in far greater de¬ 
tail than most of the other species which he mentions, and which should, 
under his system of classification, bear the name of Ommastrephes me¬ 
gaptera. Nor does he point out any new chaijacters for distinguishing 
this generic group other thau those first given by me, viz, the presence 
of connective suckers and tubercles on the tentacular arms, proximal to 
the club, and the great development of the membranes on the lateral 
arms. Under the ordinary rule of nomenclature, by which the first cor¬ 
rect subdivision made in an older genus shall be entitled to priority, 
while the original name shall be retained for the remaining group, the 
name Sthenoteuthis ought to be maintained for the division first estab¬ 
lished by me, while Ommastrephes (restricted) should be retained for a 
part or all of the remaining species. 
While I very much regret this confusion of names, I perceive no way 
to remedy it except by the application of the usual rides of priority. I 
can certainly see no necessity for the imposition of new names when 
others equally good were already provided. As for the distinction be¬ 
tween Illex and Todarodes , it seems to me very slight and scarcely of 
generic importance. Illex is characterized by having eight rows of 
small suckers on the distal part of the club and a smooth siphonal 
groove. Todarodes is characterized by having four rows of distal suck¬ 
ers and some small grooves or furrows at the anterior end of the siphonal 
groove. 
But I have a species (which I refer to 0. Sloanei Gray) from Tasma¬ 
nia which agrees with Illex in having a smooth siphonal groove, but 
