MELITA GLADIOSA. 
347 
are about two- thirds of the entire length of the animal ; 
while the inferior pair are not much more than half the 
length of the superior, and furnished with a flagellum 
which is scarcely more than half the length of the 
peduncle. The first pair of legs have the hand small, 
nearly oval, and furnished with a few fasciculi of hairs. 
The second pair of legs have the hand very large, 
broadly ovate ; the palm is convex, and unevenly ser- 
rated towards the articulation with the finger, and formed 
into a lateral depression or hollow towards the infe- 
rior angle of the palm, into which the finger shuts ; the 
latter is rather angulated near the articulation with the 
hand, and scimitar-shaped, but terminates in a somewhat 
sharper point than in M. ohtusata or proxima, The ante 
and penultimate pairs of pleopoda are short, not reach- 
ing quite to the extremity of the peduncle of the last 
pair, which are very long and very unequal in size. 
This species was originally founded upon a specimen 
taken at Boulogne, preserved in the collection of the 
Museum of the Jardin des Plantes. A second specimen 
has, however, been since taken by us in Plymouth 
Sound. 
We have a very strong conviction that this species is 
identical with Gammarus podager of M. Edwards, which 
is a true Melita. The specimen of this latter species, 
preserved in the Museum at Paris, upon which M. 
Edwards established the species, is imperfect, but one of 
its second pair of hands is preserved, and which does not 
appear to us to be in a normal condition ; but since 
M. Edwards has made it the type of a species, we do not 
feel warranted, without further observation, to do more 
than suggest its probable relationship with the present 
species. 
