1887.] G-. M. Giles — Six new Amjphipods from the Bay of Bengal. 213 



to be the case not only in the sixth but in the two preceding appendages 

 of one of the species described below. A careful examination, however, 

 of various intermediate examples, furnished by the different appendages 

 of the two species that have come under my notice, has satisfied me that 

 the dactylopodite is neither absent nor fused with the propodite, but is, 

 in such instances, represented by a minute spine-like body articulated 

 to the distal extremity of the propodite, and usually flanked by a pair of 

 tiny hairs, which appear again in a more developed form in the similarly 

 placed " dactyloptera " which Spence Bate {loc. cit.) describes on the 

 dactylo-propodital articulation of P. sedentaria. 



Both my species were taken in the drift (surface) net, — the one that 

 has been named P. hucephala, off the Mutlah light in a depth of 15 

 fathoms, the other, Phronimella Mppocephala, in somewhat shallower 

 water off the mouth of the Dhamra river on the Orissa Coast. Both 

 are perfectly colourless and transparent, so that most of the internal 

 organs, muscles, &c., can be seen with the greatest facility through the 

 integument. The circumstance of my only having obtained a single speci- 

 men of each in the surface-net appears to point to their not being nor- 

 mally surface organisms. While under observation, living in the tube 

 of the net, although perfectly capable of swimming with considerable 

 activity, they yet showed a tendency to sink to the bottom and rest 

 there. For these reasons, it is probable, that their true habitat is the 

 bottom in the localities and depths already mentioned. 



In his recent monograph on the £hronimidcB,'* Claus divides the 

 family into two sub-families — the Plirosinince and the Phronimince. 

 With the first we have nothing to do, as neither of the species to be de- 

 scribed can be referred to this subfamily. Of the Phroniminoe, he 

 enumerates four genera, of which Phronima Latr. is thus defined : — 



" Body produced, with much narrowed and elongated last thoracic 

 segment, with 3 pairs of styloid uropods. Head short, but elevated, 

 with much produced vertico-oral axis. In the female the anterior an- 

 tennae two-jointed, and posterior antenna represented by a globularly 

 arched basal joint provided with a short bristle. The mandibular palps 

 are wanting even in tbe male. Maxillipedes strongly compressed with 

 lanceolate laminae and a conical "tongue" (Zunge). Both pairs of 

 gnathopoda slender, with weak, apposed subchelae. The 5th pair of 

 thoracic appendages provided with slender apposed shear-like forceps. 

 Three pairs of gill-sacs on 4th, 5th, and 6th thoracic segments." 



Now, the family, so far as it is known, is of such variable charac- 

 ter that each new addition to its numbers appears to require a genus to 



* Arbeit, aus d. zool. Inst. d. Uiiiv. Wieu ti. d. zool. Stat, in Triest, 1879, II, 1. 



