Rev. A. M. Norman’s Notes on British Amphipoda. 133 
1830. Gammarus podager, Milne-Edwards, Ann. des Sci. Nat. vol. xx. 
. 369. 
1840. Amphithoe obtusata, M.-Edwards, Hist. des Crust. vol. ili. p. 83. 
1852. Gammarus maculatus, Lilljeborg, Ofy. af Kongl. Vet.-Akad. 
Forh. p. 10. 
1859. Gammarus obtusatus, Bruzelius, Skand. Amphip. Gamm. p. 55. 
1862. Melita obtusata, Bate & Westw. Brit. Sessile-eyed Crust. vol. i. 
p. 341, ¢ (figure but not description). 
1862. Melita proxima, iid. ibid. p. 334 (var. 3). 
1862. Megamera Alderi, iid. ibid. p. 497, 2. 
1862. Melita podager, Bate, Cat. Amphip. Brit. Mus. p. 184, pl. xxxiii. 
fig. 5. 
1868. Mehta obtusata, Norman, Last Report Dredging Shetland, Brit. 
Assoc. Report, p. 284. 
1872. Melita obtusata, Boeck, De Skand. og Arkt. Amphip. p. 386. 
1880. Melita obtusata, Hoek, Carcinologisches, p. 140, pl. x. figs. 8, 9. 
In the ‘ Last Report of Dredging among the Shetland Isles’ 
I drew attention to the facts that obtusata and proxima were 
two forms of the male, and that Megamera Alderi was the fe- 
male of this species ; and itis not without some hesitation that 
I retain even the following species MW. gladiosa as distinct from 
the present. If it is to be kept distinct some corrections 
must, I take it, be made in the synonymy. 
M. obtusata is characterized by several forms, those named 
being the type, which has a single dorsal tooth upon the 
second and third segments of pleon, ‘‘ segmenta postabdo- 
minis secundum et tertium in medio margine posteriore den- 
tibus singulis armata; segmenta quartum et quintum denti- 
bus binis aut ternis instructa”’ (Boeck), and the variety 
proxima, in which the dorsal teeth of second and third seg- 
ments are absent. Judging from Bate and Westwood’s 
figure (which is, however, at any rate unsatisfactory as 
regards the fourth and fifth segments) Montagu’s type appears 
to be the first form. When we come to examine further, 
however, there appears to be confusion. ‘The figure in the 
Cat. Amphip. Brit. Mus. must have been taken from Bate’s 
Plymouth specimen, and represents three teeth or divisions of 
the second and third segments, while in the description no 
mention is made of the exact number of teeth. ‘ Second, 
third, fourth, and fifth segments of the pleon have small 
teeth upon the postero-dorsal margin.” On the other hand, 
in the Hist. Brit. Sessile-eyed Crust. the Plymouth specimen 
and not Montagu’s is described, and we are told “ the second, 
third, fourth, and fifth segments of the tail are furnished 
at the posterior margin, on the back, with a central and two 
small lateral denticles or tooth-like processes.” It would 
seem therefore that the Plymouth specimen thus figured in 
the Catalogue and described in Brit. Sessile-eyed Crust. 
