158 



THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



The Tentacles are as long as the head and body together, and have very slender, 

 almost cylindrical stems; the cluh (figs. 11, 12) occupies about one-fourth of the whole 

 length, and is but slightly expanded. The large central suckers are about eight in number 

 and fully twice the diameter of the lateral ones ; proximally to them are about half a 

 dozen suckers of difiierent sizes, and beyond them a large number of diminishing ones 

 arranged in four series, and occupying nearly half the length of the club. The horny 

 ring in the largest suckers bears about twenty -five square teeth (fig. 14); in the lateral 

 suckers it bears more than twenty close-set acutely-pointed teeth (fig. 13), and in the 

 distal ones about the same number of similar character (fig. 9). 



Tlie Surface is smooth. 



Tlie Colour is pale, with purplish chromatophores. 



Tlie Gladius (fig. 15) is of quite typical form, expanded behind, and about six 

 times as long as broad ; the narrow anterior extremity occupies less than one third the 

 total length. 



Dimensions. 



Length, total, 



End of body to mantle-margin. 



End of body to eye. 



Breadth of body, . 



Breadth of head, . 



Eye to edge of umbrella, 



Length of fin, 



Breadth of fin, 



Breadth of each lobe, 



Diameter of largest sucker on sessile arm, 



Diameter of largest sucker on tentacle, 



Length of first arm,r 

 Length of second arm. 

 Length of third arm, 

 Length of fourth arm, 

 Length of tentacle. 



182 mm. 



75 

 18 

 15 

 10 

 40 

 42 

 16 

 M 



Eight. 



Left. 



22 mm. 



22 mm 



30 „ 



31 „ 



39 „ 



33 „2 



35 „ 



32 „ 



92 „ 



71 „ 



This specimen agrees so closely with several in the Copenhagen Museum that it is 

 impossible to do otherwise than refer them to the same species. The two most prominent 

 characters of this form are the presence of blunt teeth in the suckers, both in the tentacles 

 and the sessile arms, and the type of the hectocotylisation ; this consists in the modification 

 of the suckers of only one series (that on the ventral aspect of the arms) into conical 

 papHlse, the suckers persisting, although reduced in size, on the other. 



This form, therefore, bears a curious relation to Loligo hleekeri, Keferstein, from the 

 same region, in which the dorsal series is thus modified.^ 



' The lengths of the arms are measured from the oral margin. "Mutilated. 



2 See Bronn, Klass. u. Ord. d. Thierreichs, Bd. iii., pi. cxxii. fig. 10. 



