REPORT ON THE CEPHALOPODA. 73 



four arms, of wliicli the longest is about 14 cm. long, and contains six suckers. The inner- 

 most of these, judging from the way in which the arms slope towards each other, must 

 have been either that nearest the mouth or the second one ; it is about 1 cm. in diameter, 

 while the distal one on the fragment measures 1-5 cm. The suckers consist of hollow 

 muscular bulbs like those of Cirroteuthis, embedded in the comparatively loose tissues of 

 the arm, but the ridge marking off the true cavity from the suctorial disk is less marked, 

 and the interior seems to have been lined by a kind of cuticle, which remains as a 

 softened mass within it. The stellate form of the aperture, so distinctly marked in 

 Verriirs figure of the hectocotylised arm (op. cit., pi. li. fig. 4) is seen to some extent 

 here, though the rays of the star are more numerous and much less ' prominent. The 

 web itself is thick, tough, and very much wrinkled, and forms two or more circular folds 

 around each sucker. 



The portion of the arm is 12 cm. long and elliptio^' iti section, the axes of the ellipse 

 being 4-5 cm. and 7 cm. respectively. It seems to ccmmt of a cylindrical core 3 cm. in 

 diameter, composed of a gelatinous material containing numerous muscle-fibres embedded 

 in it : around this is a quantity of connective tissue. Only on the Inner aspect of tjie arm 

 is any integument preserved ; this is precisely similar in character to that -Sei^und- 

 ing the mouth, and contains four suckers, which are about 12 mm. in diameter and 

 3-5 cm. apart (measuring from centre to centre) ; they are arranged in a slightly wavy 

 line. 



The fragments above described agree so well in every particular with Professor 

 Verrill's graphic description of his Alloposus mollis, that there can be no doubt they 

 belong to that species. 



When in Copenhagen the year before last, Professor Steenstrup showed me the type 

 specimen of his Haliphron atlanticus, and I was at once struck by its remarkable 

 resemblance to the hectocotylised arm of Alloposus as depicted by Verrill. The specimen 

 is in fact a portion of an arm some 5 or 6 cm. in length, with two rows of very prominent 

 beehive-shaped suckers, the apertures of which are markedly stellate in form.^ 

 Unfortimately the specimen has been somewhat macerated, having been found in the 

 stomach of a shark, and no trace remains of the fringe of slender processes which 

 forms such a conspicuous character in Alloposus. 



Steenstrup's name was published nearly twenty years before Verrill's, and, in the 

 event of the identity of the two genera being conclusively proved, must take precedence. 

 The possibility must not be overiooked that the two forms may be two distinct species 

 belonging to the same genus. 



1 The original description characterises the species by the resemblance of the lobate suckers to the half-opened 

 flowers of the IDy of the valley, Convallaria inajalis, Stp., op. cit, p. 332. 



(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP.— PAET XLiV. — 1886.) Xx 10 



