A PROVISIONAL SYNOPSIS OF RECENT CEPHALOPODA. 



The latest attempt to give a complete systematic account of the Cephalopoda is that of 

 Tryon, published in 1879;^ but it labours under several disadvantages — the first and 

 most serious being that the author has given almost all his attention to Conchology 

 properly so-called, and has apparently treated the Cephalopods rather with a view of 

 making his Manual complete than from any special interest in them; secondly, the mode 

 of arrangement adopted of placing all the synonymy in the form of an alphabetical index 

 at the end of the volume renders it exceedingly difficult to ascertain what he includes 

 under each species, and, furthermore, a large number of new forms have been described 

 since the publication of his work, and several important contributions have been made to 

 our knowledge of the relations of previously described groups. 



Under these circumstances it aj)peared that the compilation of such a list as the 

 present, even though it might fail, indeed necessarily must fail, to give a completely 

 satisfactory survey of the class, would nevertheless be of considerable use to workers in 

 this interesting branch of Malacology, were it only as a reliable index to the literature of 

 the subject, and I therefore resolved to draw up in a form fit for publication the material 

 gathered for use in my own investigations, and received Mr. Murray's assent to its being 

 included in the present Report. I should, however, be doing injustice to Mr. Tryon did 

 I not acknowledge my indebtedness to his elaborate and careful index. 



At present no systematic treatment of the whole class of Cephalopoda can hope to be 

 other than provisional, such a large percentage of the published descriptions of species 

 being inaccurate or insufficient for modern requirements, that nothing satisfactory can be 

 obtained until some worker shall do for this group what Lyman did for the Ophiuroidea 

 and Agassizfor the Echini, — travel to the various museums and re-examine all such type 

 specimens as are at present extant ; and in the present instance it would be particularly 

 desirable that he should have the opportunity of comparing the difi'erent specimens side 

 by side. 



With resjDect to the list itself, I have endeavoured to give a reference to the original 

 creation of each species and such others as might be necessary to indicate the important 

 points in its history, or good descriptions and figures of it ; save in one or two cases of 



1 Manual of Concliology, vol. i. 



(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. — PART XLIV. 1886.) Xx 1 



