80 CARL BOVALLIUS, AMPHIPODA HYPERIIDEA. I. 2. HYPERIID^E. 



Syn. 1852. Tauria, J. D. DANA. — United States Exploring Expedition. Crustacea. Vol. 



2, p. 988. 



» » C. Claus. 1875. Grundziige der Zoologie. 3:te Aufl., p. 518. 



» » » 1880. Grundziige der Zoologie. 4:te Aufl., l:ster Band, p. 587. 



» » C Bovallius. 1885. »On some forgotten genera among the Amphipodous 



Crustacea". Bin. t. K. Sv. Vet. Ak. Handl. Bd. 10. 

 N:o 14, p. 16. 



» » » 1887 . "Systematical list of the Amphipoda Hyperiidea». Bih. 



t. K. Sv. Vet. Ak. Handl. Bd. 11. N:o 16, p. 19. 



» » » 1887. "Arctic and Antarctic Hyperids». Vega-Exp. Vetensk. 



Iakttagelser. Bd. 4, p. 565. 



» » Th. Stebbing. 1888. "Report on the Amphipoda». Voy. of H. M. S. Challen- 



ger. Zoology. Vol. 29, p. 1373. 



The genus Tauria has had the bad fortune to be misunderstood by the carcino- 

 logical authors after Dana, it was, however, well described and the accompanying drawing- 

 was a good one. The first time I find it in the literature after its foundation is in Spence 

 Bate's Catalogue of Amphipoda, there, p. 292, he makes it a synonym to Hyperia, say- 

 ing: »The distinction between Tauria and Hyperia depends upon the opposite extreme of 

 the development of the carpi of the gnathopoda as compared with that of Kroyer's genus 

 Metoechus, offering, to my mind, nothing more than a specific difference, — namely, in 

 the latter the great, and in the former the small amount of development of the produced 

 angles of the carpi of the griathopoda». But Dana himself says that »the angles of the 

 carpi of the gnathopoda are not at all produced, and a glance at the drawing, Dana, 1. c. 

 pi. 68, fig. 2, makes it evident that the carpus of the second pair has a shape totally 

 different to that pair in a Hyperia or a »Metoechu.$-». Getting on with the investigation 

 of the fate of the genus we find that in 1868 Spbnce Bate and Westwood in »A Hi- 

 story of the British Sessile-eyed Crustacea", vol. 2, p. 519, maintain the earlier view of 

 Spence Bate about the identity of Tauria with Hyperia, but if it is somewhat unclear 

 what Spence Bate means in the passage quoted above, speaking about »the development 

 of the carpi» it is fully clear that he and his fellow-author in the last cited work have 

 fallen into a complete error with regard to the characteristics of the genus Tauria, 

 Dana. Reasoning about their new species Hyperia tatiriformis, which is characterized by 

 »the inferior angle of the carpus is anteriorly produced in both pairs of gnathopoda», 

 they say: »Dana established the genus Tauria for the reception of those species of Hy- 

 peria, that have the antero-inferior angle of the carpus of both pairs of gnathopoda so 

 far anteriorly produced as to extend to the extremity of the propodos 1 ), thus forming a 

 tolerably perfect but compound chelate organ». Thus the genus had been disguised to 

 unknowableness. 



C. Claus in 1875 and 1880 recorded Tauria as a genus belonging to the family 

 Hyperidae, without mentioning anything about its supposed synonymy with Metoecus; 

 he quoted from Dana the characteristic concerning the form of the second pair of perseo- 



*) Propodos = metacarpus. 



