76 
F. ERNEST WEISS. 
according to him, the slit-like renal openings, loss of accessory 
nidimental glands, and a uniting commissure between the 
stellate ganglia. The Loligopsis group he characterised further 
by the absence of a siphonal valve and the loss of one of the 
oviducts (the right one in Chiroteuthis Veranyi). This 
group included Chiroteuthis, Loligopsis, Owenia, and 
possibly Hi stioteuthi s and Verauia, as also devoid of a 
valve in the funnel. 
But the name Loligopsis has now been restricted to the 
genus formed by Lamarck from a specimen described by Peron 
and Lesueur, which resembles Sepiola, with the exception of 
having a rhomboidal fin and only eight arms ; and we can 
therefore no longer adopt the name of Loligopsidse for a family 
containing Histioteuthis and Chiroteuthis. Hoyle, 1 in 1886, in 
his ‘ Report on the Cephalopoda/ adopts a classification which 
places Chiroteuthis, Histioteuthis, and Doratopsis, together 
with other genera (Histiopsis, Brachioteutliis, and Calliteuthis), 
in a family of Taonoteuthidse (Steenstrup, 1861), with the 
single subfamily of Chiroteuthidm (Gray, 1849). Speaking of 
the general characters of the family, he says, “ There seems 
to be some uncertainty as regards the presence of a valve ; for 
though the older observers affirm its absence, Verrill, in a 
species of this genus (Chiroteuthis) of the Northern Atlantic, 
distinctly affirms that a valve is present ; and Professor Lan- 
kester informs me that in a Chiroteuthis V eranyi, in Uni- 
versity College Museum, London, there is a very small, in fact 
a rudimentary, valve, just a transverse fold, not projecting 
much, and that he has acquired a Histioteuthis with a well- 
developed valve in its funnel.” 
I am able to confirm these observations of Professor Lan- 
kester, and to add several new points to what little was known 
before of these very interesting forms. The careful examina- 
tion of these forms leads me to uphold the uniting of Chiroteu- 
this, Doratopsis, and Histioteuthis into one family, as is done by 
Hoyle, and was done also by D’Orbiguy, though the classifica- 
tion of the latter was based on many erroneous observations; but 
1 W. E. Hoyle, ‘ lteport of H. M. S. Challenger,’ “ Zoology,” 16, 1886. 
