34 



M O L L U S C A. 



BY 



EDGAR A. SMITH. 



Witii the exception of Mr. John Brazier's report on the Mollusca 

 of the ' Chevert ' expedition * there does not appear to have been 

 published any work of importance treating exclusively on the forms 

 of North and North-eastern Australia. Dr. Tapparone-Canefri has 

 written a few papers on the fauna of Papua, and a large number of 

 species have, at various times, been described in different works 

 and periodicals by Reeve, A. Adams, Watson, and others, from Port 

 Essington, Torres Straits, and the coast of Queensland. 



Many of the species found in this district range as far as, or even 

 further north than, the Philippine Islands, and westward to Swan 

 River, and, even in a few cases, to Ceylon and the Mauritius ; but 

 the general character of the fauna may be regarded as Malayan, 

 although many of the species appear to be limited in their distribu- 

 tion and not as yet met with in the Archipelago. 



I. CEPHALOPODA. 



1. Octopus polyzenia. (Plate IV. figs. A-A 3. ) 



Gray, Cat. Cephal. Anteped. Brit. Jliis. p. 13.. 



Animal small (perhaps young), minutely and closely granulated 

 upon the back of the body, head, arms, and connecting well ; the 

 lower surface of the body, head, funnel, and web above it being more 

 sparsely granulated. Body (in spirit) wider than long, rounded at 

 the end, exhibiting a faint central ventral groove from the opening 

 at the neck to the extremity. Head broad but narrower than the 

 body, with a single papilla, near the upper hinder edge of the ocular 

 opening. Arms not very long; three upper pairs subequal in 

 Length, ventral pair rather longer. Lower surface and membrane 

 between them very minutely granulous. Membrane between the 

 arms extending about one third their length and also in a narrow 

 strip up the side of them, but between the dorsal pair it is almost 

 entirely wanting. Cups on the upper arms gradually decreasing in 

 size from near the mouth to the extremity, on the three other pairs 

 of alius enlarging gradually a- far as the sixth pair (these being 

 nearly twice as large as any on the dorsal pair), and then gradually 



* Froc. Linn, fcioc. New South Wale*, vols. ii. and iii. 



