56 "TERRA NOVA" EXPEDITION. 



regards this point, the accounts of A. striata are somewhat obscure. Mobius says that 

 the proboscis is " fast so hxng wie cler Rumpf," but his figures show it as either about 

 half or two-thirds as long. Bouvier describes it as " legerement plus longue c|ue le 

 tronc," and figures it as little more than half as long. Both authors agree, however, 

 that the proboscis is curved downwards, while in our specimen it is straight. Further, 

 the abdomen is horizontal, the oviger more slender than in Bouvier's figure, and with 

 the penultimate segment more nearly equal to the terminal one, the propoclus has 

 three or four very large spines on its inner edge, and the auxiliary claws are not 

 more than one-fourth of the length of the main claw. The other characters, so far 

 as they can be determined, are in general agreement with the accounts of A. striata. 

 No fully adult specimen of this species appears to have been figured. Bouvier, 

 although he enumerates only adults as having been taken by the " Pourquoi Pas ? ", 

 figures a male with chelate chelophores, and, therefore, presumably immature. 



Genus ACHELIA, Hodge. 



Hodge, 1864, p. 114. 



Hodgson (1910rt, p. 436) having revived the name Achelia, Bouvier (1913, pp. 46 

 and 138) has restricted it to those Ammotheidge that have eight segments in the palp, 

 giving at the same time a warning that certain earlier names might have a claim to 

 supersede it. The validity of these earlier names depends on the identification of species 

 from European seas that cannot be discussed here, and I am content to follow Bouvier 

 in using Hodge's name for the genus.* 



Hodgson (1914-15, p. 147) has proposed a new genus Austrothea for two species 

 which appear, from an examination of his type-specimens, to differ in no respect from the 

 typical form of Achelia except that they have well-separated lateral processes and longer 

 legs. It is clear that these characters by themselves cannot furnish a basis for generic 

 distinction, and, in fact, the present collection gives evidence that they are subject to 

 variation within the limits of a species. I propose, therefore, to regard Austrothea as a 

 synonym of Achelia. Of the two species of Austrothea described by Hodgson, one, 

 A. s-picata, is represented by many specimens in the "Terra Nova" collections and is 

 redescribed below ; the other, A. (jermanica, is described by Hodgson from a very young 

 specimen with chelate chelophores, and I can express no opinion on its specific 

 distinctness ; like specimens of similar age in the present collection, it has the ocular 

 tubercle very tall, slender, and acutely conical. 



More than a hundred specimens belonging to this genus were obtained by the 



* It may be pointed but, however, that the identification of Costa's Alcinous vulgaris with Dohrn's 

 Ammothca franciscaiia, which Bouvier adopts apparently from Norman, might justify, although it does not 

 compel, the use of Alcinous ; also that, in identifying the still earlier Parihoea spinipalpis, Philippi, with 

 Achelia echinata, Hodge, Bouvier, by omitting the mark of interrogation placed by Norman against this 

 identification, surrenders our last defence against the revival of Philippi's generic name. See, however, 

 Schimkewitsch (1913, p. 605). 



