.4. K Verrill — North American Cephalopods. 
313 
The following description of the colors was made from a freshly 
caught, adult, male specimen (1 G) ; taken in New Haven Harbor, 
May 18, 1880. 
Upper surfaces of the body, head and caudal fin thickly covered 
with rather large chromatophores, which are mostly rounded or 
nearly circular, except along the middle of the back, where they are 
more crowded and darker, and mostly have a long-elliptical form 
(perhaps accidental). 
The chromatophores, when expanded, are light red to dark lake- 
red, varying to purplish red and pink ; when contracted to small 
points, they become brownish purple. 
On the head, behind the middle of the eyes, and toward the mar- 
gin of the caudal fin, the spots are smaller and less numerous, the 
intervening bluish white ground-color showing more largely. Over 
most of the dorsal surface the chromatophores are arranged more or 
less evidently in circular groups ; usually the central chromatophore 
is a large, round, dark purplish spot ; this is surrounded by a circular 
space of whitish ground-color; and by a circle of roundish chromat- 
ophores, mostly of different shades of lake-red and pink, and a deeper 
lying circle of pale canary-yellow ones. On the lower side they are 
so thinly scattered that they leave much of the translucent bluish 
white ground-color visible between them ; along the median ventral 
line the spots are more numerous, producing a distinct median stripe. 
The caudal fin is clear bluish white beneath, and very translucent, 
becoming almost transparent near the margin. 
Exposed part of the siphon similar to the ventral surface of the 
body, but with the spots more sparse, and mostly disappearing near 
the margin and at the base; lower side of the head, in front of the 
eyes, sparsely spotted. Outer and upper sides of the upper arms, 
and outer surfaces of the ventral pair similarly, but somewhat more 
densely, specked; both sides of the ventral arms and lower sides of 
the lateral arms pinkish white and unspotted. Tentacular arms pale 
translucent, bluish white, with the outer surface, except at base, 
rather thinly specked with small purplish chromatophores; the inner 
surface and upper side of the tip and the suckers are translucent 
white; rings of suckers white. 
On the inner surface of the dorsal and lateral arms, between the 
suckers, there are a few large chromatophores, and a double row of 
them runs out obliquely on the muscular thickenings of the mar- 
ginal membrane, alternating with the suckers, on each side; suckers 
pure translucent, bluish white (becoming yellow or brown in alcohol). 
