396 A. E. VerriU — N'orth American Cephcdopods. 



more effectually, I here give a new description of the pen, based 

 on tliese fragments, arranged as I now understand the i'orm and 

 sti'ucture. 



New description of the pen of ArcJiiteuthis JIarveyi V. 



The parts preserved all belong to the posterior blade, which is 

 now flattened and much mutilated, but it was very thin and broad, 

 running out to attenuated borders ; and it apparently had a small, 

 acute,' hooded terminal portion, or thin hollow cone, perhaps only 

 two or three inches long, while the broad blade itself must have been 

 more than two feet long and upward of a foot wide, when flattened 

 oiit. No part ol the narrow anterior shaft, which probably existed, 

 is preserved. 



The extreme posterior end is gone, but the convergent ribs indi- 

 cate that it tapered to a point ; each edge of the i)resent end, for 

 rather more than an inch, is thickened by a more divergent marginal 

 rib, running into the edge and disappearing, while the edges here 

 appear to have been toi'n apart, and this portion appears to have 

 constituted the hooded portion ; beyond this the margins run out to 

 a very thin and ill-defined edge. The midrib, or dorsal keel, is at 

 first sharply angular Avith a triangular section, and the slender lateral 

 costa; are completely confluent with it, but a little farther forward 

 these begin to become distinct and slightly divergent, till at about 

 ten inches from the end they are about an inch from the midrib; 

 except close to the posterior end, the midrib is regularly rounded, or 

 nearly semi-cylindrical. Near the posterior end there are three or 

 four other slightly thickened, divergent ribs, on each side, between 

 the midrib and the margin, but all these, except the inner ones, soon 

 run obliquely to the margins and disappear; probably these mark 

 the portion that was incurved or partially hooded. The surface is 

 marked by fine stria? between and parallel to the ribs, but the ob- 

 lique, divergent striw, so conspicuous in Sfhenotexthis, are scarcely 

 apparent. The midrib has nothing of the double or grooved 

 character seen in that of StJienoteutkis and Ommastrephes, the 

 divergent ribs are much less numerous, and the whole structure is 

 much more thin and flexible and the marginal portions much more 

 ill-defined and membranous. 



Architeuthis abundant in 1875 at the Grand JBan/iS. 

 From Capt. J. W. Collins, now of the United States Fish Commis- 

 sion, I learn that in October, 1875, an unusual number of giant- 

 squids were found floating at the surface on the Grand Banks, but 



