T. W. Kirx.—On new Cephalopoda. 285 
Special Description. 
This specimen was stranded at Island Bay, Cook Strait, on Sunday, 6th 
June, 1880. When I reached the spot a very large portion of the tenta- 
cular arms had been torn off and carried away by the sea. Mr. James 
McColl, who was then living near the bay, informed me that he discovered 
the animal on the beach about seven o’clock that morning ; it was then not 
quite dead. After recovering from his surprise, he “ straightened out the 
longest feelers and measured them; they were just twenty-five feet, with 
broad pieces at the ends. The broad pieces had a row of fifteen suckers 
along each side, and a middle row of nineteen.” The portions of the 
tentacular arms remaining measured—tright, eleven feet nine inches ; left, 
eleven feet ; and seven and a half inches in circumference. At intervals of 
about three feet were placed a sucker and a small fleshy tubercle, the sucker 
on the left arm corresponding with the tubercle on the right. * 
The first, second, and fourth pairs of sessile arms were of equal length 
and size, viz., nine feet long by fifteen inches in cireumferance, each carry- 
ing sixty-five suckers. The third pair much longer and stouter, being ten 
feet five inches in length and twenty-one inches in cireumference, armed 
with seventy-one suckers. The suckers were arranged in two alternate 
rows. Along each angle of the arms ran a fleshy membrane about one and 
a half inches deep, which could be folded over the suckers. 
Arms connected by a web eleven inches deep, forming » funnel round 
the mouth. | 
Head four feet three inches in circumference, and nineteen inches from — 
root of arms to anterior margin of mantle. Lye five inches by four. : 
Body from anterior margin of mantle to tip of tail seven feet six 
inches ; greatest circumference nine feet two inches; at anterior end, six 
feet four. 
Fins extending on to the back as in the case of Onychoteuthis, length 
anterior margin, thirty inches ; width, twenty-eight inches. 
The beak and portions of the skeleton had been extracted by some 
Italian fishermen, and although an effort was made to trace and procure 
them, it failed. se 
This species may be considered as intermediate between Architeuthis, 
Steenstrup, and Stenoteuthis, Verrill, from both of which, however, it differs 
so much as almost to demand the creation of a new genus, but until more 
specimens are procured I prefer to place it under Architeuthis. 
I have dedicated it to Prof. Verrill, to whom I am greatly indebted 
for a copy of his exhaustive paper on the gigantic Cephalopoda of North 
