240 Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing on the true Podocerus 



really is. The finger of the second gnathopods, figured with 

 a strong tooth on the inner margin, and thus corresponding to 

 the description " fangs falciform, with one tooth," will not 

 suit any of the synonyms. Moreover, Montagu says : — 

 " This curious and rare species inhabits the deep, amongst 

 Sertularia, and Algce, and has only been taken by dredging 

 at Tor-cross." No one in South Devon needs to go dredging 

 for Leach's pulchellus. It is a common shore species. The 

 possibility that jalcatus is identical with lierdmani, Walker, 

 and odontonyx, Sars (see A. O. Walker, Ann. & Mag. Nat. 

 Hist. ser. 6, vol. xv. p. 472), is weakened by the fact that the 

 specimens described by the later authors have a length less 

 than half that recorded by Montagu, so that his species really 

 remains, as it was left by Leach, indeterminate. 



It has long been recognized, apparently on Norman's 

 initiative, that the form which Spence Bate had named Podo- 

 cerus pelogicus (Leach) was the female to the male form 

 pulchellus. But by acute and diligent scrutiny of the 

 specimens in the British Museum Mr. A. O. Walker has 

 discovered that Leach's species Jassa pelagica corresponds 

 not with Bates's female of pulchellus, but with Rathke's 

 Podocerus capillatus. Around this latter form a curious 

 mystification has gathered. In 1859 Bruzelius referred it to 

 the genus Jassa of Leach, while to Podocerus he assigned two 

 species, one of which belongs to Ischyrocerus of Kioyer and 

 the other is a synonym of Jassa pulchella. Twelve years 

 later Boeck erroneously identified Rathke's cap>illatus with 

 Podocerus variegatus, Leach, but, instead of calling it by that 

 name, he described it as Janassa variegata, at the same time 

 making Leach's pulchella and pelagica the synonyms of a 

 species which he called Podocerus falcatus, Montagu. He 

 regarded Jassa of Leach as a synonym of Podocerus, and 

 Jassa of Bruzelius as preoccupied by Minister in 1839 for the 

 generic name of a fish, on these grounds introducing the name 

 Janassa, the very one which was, in fact, as Mr. Smith 

 Woodward tells me, preoccupied by Minister in 1832 for a 

 well-known extinct fish. For this genus, therefore, the name 

 Parajassa is now proposed, to comprise the two species 

 pelagica (Leach) and tristanensis, Stebbing. 



For the species Podocerus cumbrensis, Stebbing & Robert- 

 son, a new genus — Microjassa — is proposed. It nearly 

 resembles Jassa, but has the side-plates of the second to the 

 fourth pairs much deeper than the rest, and the large fourth 

 pair conspicuously emarginate behind for the small fifth ; the 

 second antennas are but little stronger than the first, the outer 



