496 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AXD FISHERIES. 



coarse hairs, which are most numerous on the outer joints. The body 

 is slightly hairy or nearly naked. Color light dull yellow. Adult spe- 

 cimens are very frequently covered with rubbish, and living Bryozoa, 

 Sponges, Ehizopods, etc., are often attached to them. Length 12 milli- 

 meters; extent 73 millimeters. 



This species has not before been recorded from our coast, though 

 taken in great numbers off Halifax by the United States Fish Commis- 

 sion in 1877. It occiu"s on rocky, gravelly, or muddy bottoms, down to 

 50 fathoms. Sept. 24th, 1877, several hauls made off Halifax in 50 

 fathoms, muddy bottom, brought them up by hundreds, clinging to the 

 meshes of the trawl-net. A single specimen was dredged off Salem, 

 Mass., in 48 fathoms, soft mud. Many of the specimens had egg- 

 masses. In some of these, young were found in various stages of 

 growth. In the earliest stage observed (Plate VII, figure 41) the 

 body is very large and swoUen, without a trace of segmentation. The 

 rostrum is short and directed downward. The five anterior pairs of 

 appendages are developed, the posterior one rudimentary. The basal 

 joint of the antennte bears a long flagellum. 



Sj)ecme7is examined. 



It is, unfortunately, a difiicult matter to know whether the name Mr- 

 tum should really be applied to this form. It is impossible to determine 

 from Fabricius's very brief description of N'. hirium from the " Norwe- 

 gian Ocean " ; and hence most writers, including Kriiyer, who first fully 

 described and figured the species, have referred to it as ^'- Nymplion hir- 

 tum Fabr. ? " Our specimens differ from Kroyer's figures in Gaimard's 

 " Voyages en Scandinavie, Laponie," etc., in several particulars, most 

 notably in the form of the antennae and proportions of the palpal joints ; 

 Kroyer's specimens were from Iceland. G. O. Sars, in a recent paper 

 (Archiv for Mathematik og Naturvidenskab, andet Bind, Tredie Hefte, 

 p. 365, 1877), records, from the same region, a form which he identifies 

 with N. liirtum Fabr. and with N. hirtipes Bell, but which " vix = y. 

 Mrtimi Kroyer." It seems to me probable, under these circumstances, 



