156 Mr. A. O. Walker — Phoxocephalus pectinatus, Wlk., 



lunules nearest the anal angle are several silvery azure-blue 

 spots and lines, crowned by a V-sbaped black line, and another 

 black line situated horizontally towards the inner margin. 

 The posterior wings have two tails. 



Expanse of wings 1^ inch. 



Hab. New Ireland. 



Described from a female specimen. There is a male from 

 the same locality, but it is too much rubbed to permit of a 

 satisfactory description ; it does not appear, so far as can be 

 seen, to differ from the female, except that the wings are less 

 rounded and the white band on the anterior wings is more 

 sharply angulated at its upper end. 



Nearest to M. dams, but differs from it in the absence of 

 the lunules on the upperside of the posterior wings of that 

 species, and on the underside in the deeper and brighter 

 colouring of the lunules on the posterior wings, and otherwise 

 as before mentioned. It is also a smaller species. 



XXV. — Phoxocephalus pectinatus, Walker, or 

 P. simplex (Bate) ? 



To the Editors of the ^Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History.'' 



Gentlemen, — You published in your May number a descrip- 

 tion by me of Phoxocephalus pectinatus, sp. n. On May 4 I 

 received from Mr. J. T. Caiman a copy of a paper published 

 by him in the April number of the Trans. Eoyal Irish 

 Academy, in which he describes the male of the same species, 

 and refers it to Phoxocephalus simplex (Bate) . While fully 

 appreciating Mr. Caiman's laudable desire not to increase 

 unnecessarily the number of species, I regret that I cannot 

 agree with him as to the identity of the species he and I have 

 described with Bate's. In fact, as a comparison of the two 

 columns annexed will show, almost the only points on which 

 they agree and which are not common to the genus are the 

 gnathopods, and even these, to judge from Bate's figures in 

 the Brit. Mus. Cat., are more unequal in P. simplex than in 

 P. pectinatus. In short, P. pectinatus might be referred to 

 P. kergueleni (Stebbing), which it closely resembles in the 

 gnathopods, with much greater reason than to P. simplex. 

 The eyes in P. pectinatus are large and as conspicuously dark 



