180 G- 0. SARS, 



to that basin, only a few forms having been stated to be common also to 

 the Black Sea. According to the investigations of Dr. Grimm, several 

 forms descend to very considerable depths, and among them are some, 

 which evidently show themselves to be of true arctic origin. 



Our knowledge to the Caspian Amphipoda is still very imperfect, only 

 scattered notes having hitherto been published about this part of the Fauna. 

 It therefore cannot fail that a full account of the species occurring in that 

 isolated basin may have a considerable interest. I give below a summary of 

 the earlier publications i-eferring to the Amphipodous Fauna of the Caspian 

 Sea, as far as I have been enabled to state by looking over the literature 

 accessible to me. 



In his ((Fauna caspio-caucasia»'), Mr. Eichwald mentions 2 species of 

 Gammarus occurring in the Caspian Sea, and already noticed many years 

 previously by Pallas^). The one of these species was considered by the 

 latter author as identical with G. pulex Fabr., whereas the other was 

 noticed as a new species and named G. caspius. Mr. Eichwald gives 

 a short diagnosis of the latter form, and describes more at length another 

 species from the Black Sea, G. haemobaphes, which he believes is the same 

 as that noticed by Pallas as G. pulex. In the Catalogue of Amphipoda in 

 the British Museum (1862), Sp. Bate describes and figures 2 species of 

 Gammarus, G. caspius Brandt and G. semicarinatiis u. sp., which both 

 would seem to belong to the Caspian Fauua, though no exact locality was 

 indicated for any of them. The last-named species is unquestionably, to 

 judge from the figure, identical with G. caspius of Pallas as characterised 

 by Eichwald, whereas the former is a very different species, perhaps that 

 subsequently named by Dr. Grimm G. aralo-caspius (or G. rohustoides). 

 Sp. Bate refers for this species to Brandt's treatise in Middendorff's 

 Sibirische Reise, but this must be an error, as no species of that name is 

 mentioned in that work; and tlie locality (Asiatic Russia?) would seem to 

 have merely been inserted because the specimen, from which the description 

 and figure was taken, was presented to the Museum of the Jardin des 

 Plantes by Professor Brandt. The most recent publication referring to the 

 Amphipodous Fauna of the Caspian Sea is that given by Di'. Grimm in 

 ((Archiv fiir NaturgeschichtO) for 1880^). In this very interesting treatise 

 no less than 1 8 different species of Caspian Amphipoda are mentioned, col- 

 lected by him from rather deep water in the southern and middle part of 

 that Sea. But the species are only named, no descriptions whatever having 



1) Nouv. Mem. de la Soc. Imp. des Naturalistes de Moscou, T. VII, 1842. 



2) oReise durch Russland I. 1801» (accordiug to Eichwald). 



3) «Beitrag zur Keuntniss einiger bliudeu Amijliipoden des Kaspisees.i) 



$H3.-MaT. CTp. ISO. o 



