A, EF. Verrili—North American Cephalopods. 179 
time and place of occurrence of fourteen of the specimens enumerated 
below, it seems desirable to bring together, at this time, accounts of 
all these, as well as of several additional specimens, in order that the 
various descriptions and measurements may be more readily com- 
pared, and also that some errors in the former accounts may be 
corrected and new information added. To facilitate the comparison 
of the general accounts of the twenty examples that [ am now able 
to enumerate from our coast, I have given, by themselves, the state- 
ments of the time and place of their occurrence, with such general 
descriptions and measurements of each, as are most available, reserv- 
ing the more detailed special descriptions of the preserved specimens 
for the systematic part of this article. 
This seemed the more’desirable because the information concerning 
many of the specimens is so scanty as to render it impossible to refer 
them, with certainty, to either of the species now recognized or named. 
It is probable, however, that only three distinct forms exist among the 
large Newfoundland specimens of Architeuthis, and two of these may 
be merely the males and females of one species. One of the principal 
differences usually indicated by the measurements is in respect to the 
size and length of the shorter arms, one form having them compara- 
tively stout, often “ thicker than a man’s thigh,” while the other form 
has them long and slender, (usually three to five inches in diameter, 
with a length of six to eleven feet). In case these differences prove 
to be sexual, those with stout arms will probably be the females, 
judging from analogy with the small squids nearest related.* The 
two specimens, of which I have seen the arms, both have them long 
and slender, but in one the arms are much longer in proportion to 
the body than in the other, and there are marked differences in the 
denticulation of the suckers of the short arms. These differences 
appear to indicate two species. 
A few words of explanation may be desirable in regard to the rel- 
ative value of the measurements usually given, and also with reference 
* By examinations of very numerous specimens of the common squids, Omumastrephes 
illecebrosa and Loligo Pealii, I have satisfied myself that the females of both differ 
from the males by having the head, the siphon, the arms, and the suckers relatively 
larger and stronger than in the males. In comparing specimens of the two sexes 
having the body and fins of the same length, this difference is very evident. The 
large suckers of the tentacular arms show this increased size in a very marked degree. 
The short arms show a greater increase in diameter than in length. In my former 
article, by an unfortunate error, the increase in size of these parts was inadvertently 
said to be in the male. In these common squids I have found scarcely any variation 
in the relative size and form of the caudal fins, when adult. 
