T. W. Kirk. — 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 — right, 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 circumferance, 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 circumference, 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 deejj, which could be folded over the suckers. 



Arms connected by a web eleven inches deep, forming a funnel round 

 the mouth. 



Head four feet three inches in circumference, and nineteen inches from 

 root of arms to anterior margin of mantle. Eye 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 to 

 anterior margin, thirty inches ; width, twenty-eight inches. 



The beak and portions of the skeleton had been extracted by some 

 Itahan fishermen, and although an effort was made to trace and procure 

 them, it failed. 



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 tjie gigantic Cephalopoda of North 

 America. 



