290 A. E. Verrill — North American Cephalopods. 



alternating witli these, on each margin there is a row of smaller, 

 more oblique, sharply denticulate, marginal suckers; distal nar- 

 rowed face of the club covered with four rows of minute crowded 

 suckers, and "a small cluster at the tip ; the proximal part of the club 

 has an irregular group of few, small, denticulate suckers, beyond 

 which, extending down on the upper margin of the arm, is a row of 

 about five or six small, smooth-edged, connective suckers, alternating 

 with small round tubercles, of corresponding size ; along the lower 

 edge of the arm, for about the same distance, there is a I'ow of more 

 minute pedicelled suckei'S. The horny rings of the larger median 

 suckers are oblique, and the edge is divided into many small slender 

 teeth, longer on the outer margin ; the teeth of the marginal suckers 

 are similar, but more unequal and more incurved. 



Specimens in alcohol generally show a distinct, dark purplish 

 brown dorsal stripe, where the chromatophores are very much 

 crowded. 



Total length to tips of lateral arms, 121"'"^; tail to base of arms, 

 93 ; body, 82 ; length of caudal fin, to insertion, 29 ; its breadth, 

 58; diameter of body, 16 ; length of tentacular arms, 48"'™. Young. 



Middle Atlantic and West Indies ; common in the region of the 

 Gulf Sti-eam. 



This is an exceedingly active species, swimming with great veloc- 

 ity, and not rarely leaping so high out of the water as to fall on the 

 decks of vessels. On this account it has been called the '■''flying 

 sgicid,'''' by sailors. 



It is a more slender species than 0. illecebrosa, with a shorter fin, 

 and it has but four rows of small suckers on the distal part of the 

 club, instead of eight. The most important differences, of generic 

 value, are the presence of connective suckers and tubercles on the ten- 

 tacular arms, and the great development of the marginal membranes 

 on the lateral arms. The grooves in the siphon-pit are of compara- 

 tively little importance. 



GonatUS Gray. 

 Gonatus Gray, Catalogue Mollusca Brit. Mus., i, Cephal. Antep., p. 67, 1849, (char- 

 acters inaccurate.) 

 Body slender, tapering ; caudal fins short, broad, united posteriorly. 

 Pen narrow anteriorly ; thin and lanceolate posteriorly, with a termi- 

 nal, hood-like expansion. Sessile arms with four rows of small, pedi- 

 cellated suckers, those of the two median rows larger, with a horny 

 ring, having a single large hooked claw on the outer edge ; outer 



