524 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



examined specimens from numerous localities along the New England coast and farther north. It is 

 often associated with Unciola in-:, ruin and species of Arnpelisca. 



Besides the characters mentioned in the description, the males may be distinguished from the 

 females by the greater width of the anterior end of the thorax, the much longer tirst thoracic segment, 

 which is about equal to the two succeeding segments, and has a large, round, light-colored spot on 

 each side. The coxal plate of the second gnathopods is especially prominent in large males and has 

 a shallow groove on the outer side. This plate in the female is larger than the others, but .Iocs not 

 project much, if any, below them. Stimpson states that the tirst and second antennae are about equal 

 in the male and that the tirst are longer than the second in the female. Most of the males I have 

 examined resembled the females in having the first antennae longer than the second pair. 



In his Catalogue of Amphipodous Crustacea in the British Museum, Bate gives what purports to 

 be a description of a male of this species which was sent him by Doctor Stimpson. The description 

 and the figures drawn from this specimen indicate that it was really a female. I find that the 

 marsupial plates in several females that were examined are very small and of unusual form. Bate had 

 but one specimen of this species, and he probably overlooked the marsupial plates, as one might 

 readily do in a cursory examination, and concluded, therefore, that his specimen was a male. 



Podoceropsis nitida (Stimpson). 



PodorA rus nitidus Stimpson, Marine Invert. Grand Manan, p. 45, 1853. 



Podoa ni/ms excavata iBntei Meinert, Naturhist. Tidskr. (3), Vol. XI, p. 152, 1877. 



X< noclea megachir Smith, Trans. Conn. Acad. Sci.. Vol. III. 1874, p. 32. pi. IV, figs. 1-4. 



Eyes rounded -oval, situated at the base of and partly upon the pointed lateral lobes of head; 

 antenna;' of nearly equal length, somewhat exceeding half the length of body, and strongly setose: 

 peduncle of tirst pair subequal to flagellum; second joint of peduncle longer than third, which is 



slightly longer than first; flagellum consisting of 12-16 

 joints; second antennae with last two joints of peduncle 

 of subequal length; flagellum a little shorter than pe- 

 duncle; anterior five coxal plates somewhat deeper than 

 wide, and deeper than their segments; fifth pair with 

 large anterior lobe as deep as in preceding pairs; tirst 

 gnathopods with carpus a little longer than hand and 

 about as wide: hand oblong, more or less fusiform, and 

 furnished with a very large dactyl which closes against 

 nearly the whole posterior margin of hand; second gnath- 

 opods much stouter than first; ischium with a rather 

 prominent anterior lobe; carpus subtriangular, rather 

 short, with a small, setose posterior process; hand broad- 

 ly oval, stout, palm oblique, with a deep, rounded excavation near the middle, at either end of which 

 is an angular prominence, the posterior prominence being followed by a smaller, more rounded emi- 

 nence and furnished on inner side with a strong spine; posterior margin of hand furnished with about 

 five tufts of seta?; postero- lateral angles of third abdominal segment with a very small projection; 

 lirst uropods with peduncle considerably longer than rami, and furnished with a strong spine pro- 

 jecting beneath the rami at the distal end; third uropods with rami nearly equal to peduncle, the outer 

 slightly the shorter. 

 Length, 7 mm. 



Grand Manan (Stimpson); Eastport, Me.; Norway (Sars); British Isles (Bate); Rhode Island. 

 This species is described from a single female specimen taken by Hyatt and Van Vleck at East- 

 port, Me. I have no doubt of its identity with Stimpson's Podoeertis nitidus, described originally from 

 Grand Manan. In Stimpson's description the second gnathopods are said to have "a short spine on 

 the second article [ischium] in front." What was referred to as a spine was doubtless the small 

 anterior lobe of this joint, as the existence of a true spine in this situation would be a quite unusual 

 occurrence among the Amphipoda. There is no doubt, I believe, that the species subsequently 

 described by Bate from the coast of Northumberland, England, as X;niia urmala is the same as this 

 species. The specimen from Eastport agrees well with Bate's description, and also with the descrip- 

 tion and figures of excavata in Sars's " Crustacea of Norway." The posterior gnathopods of the male 

 are described by Sars as "very powerfully developed, with the propodus large and oval in form, not 



Podoceropsis nitida, female. Eastport, Me. 



