REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [164] 
Sepioteuthis sepioidea D’Orb.—(Continued.) 
Gray, Catal. Moll. Brit. Mus., i, p. 81, 1849. 
Tryon, Man. Conch., i, p. 153, pi. 63, fig. 216. (Description copied from Gray; 
figure from D'Orbigny.) 
Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad., v, p. 345, 1881. 
Body oblong, stout, depressed, tapering but little, obtuse posteriorly. 
The fins, together, have a long, rhomboidal form, broadest in the middle 
and rounded posteriorly; they commence a short distance (5 to 10 Ium ) 
from the anterior border of the mantle and extend to the posterior end; 
a narrow crest-like extension of the fins, around the posterior end of the 
body, unites them together. Buccal membrane with seven long, acute 
lobes, without suckers. Sessile arms rather slender, the third pair 
much the largest; the first very short and compressed. Suckers with 
broad rims, having long, slender teeth on the outer side and smaller 
ones on the inner. Tentacular club with four row’s of large suckers, 
about twelve in each; the central ones have the rims strongly and reg¬ 
ularly denticulated with slender, acute teeth; the marginal ones are 
but little smaller, with similar teeth on the outer edge. The pen is 
broad, lance-shaped; the blade is wide and thin, without any marginal 
thickenings. 
The male has the left ventral arm heetocotylized by the enlargement 
and elongation of the stems of the suckers, in both rows, on the distal » 
part of the arms, as in Loligo; but in this species the cups are entirely 
obsolete on many of the stems in both rows, the stems becoming long, 
conical, with acute tips. The large spermatophore-sac is filled with 
spermatophores in some of the specimens examined by me, and there is 
a saccular enlargement of the efferent sperm-duct or “penis” near the 
terminal orifice. These specimens have the larger part of the inner sur¬ 
face of the siphon covered with a soft, whitish, glandular-looking mem¬ 
brane, which is thrown into longitudinal, convoluted folds. 
A large female, taken in July, has a short, thick ovary, and is distended 
by comparatively few very large eggs (5-6 mm in diameter), which have 
a strongly reticulated surface before reaching the glandular part of the 
duct. The oviduct is very large, with large glands, and its external 
orifice is large and surrounded by a broad and very complicated border. 
The accessory nidamental glands are also very large. The short ovary 
is restricted to the posterior part of the body. This specimen had 
spermatophores attached to and around a large elevated area on the 
lower part of the inner surface of the inner buccal membrane. 
This species is widely distributed along the warmer parts of the 
American coast and throughout the West Indies, extending as far 
north, at least, as Bermuda, from whence I have a specimen collected 
by Mr. G. Brown Goode. It may, therefore, occasionally occur as far 
north as Cape Hatteras, but I have seen no specimens from our coast, 
north of Florida. 
From the Museum of Comparative Zoology I have received two speci¬ 
mens from Cuba (Professor Poey); two large males, with spermato- 
