288 
bulletin of the bureau of fisheries. 
Material examined .—One immature female was taken the Albatross in 286 to 290 fathoms, station 
4095, northeast approach to Pailolo Channel [S. S. B. 209]. It is catalogue No. 214378 of the United 
States National Museum. 
Remarks.— Tihis interesting species has been described in such excellent detail by Verrill, Joubin, 
and other writers, that I have endeavored in the above paragraphs to give merely an account of the 
more salient characters of the species as they appear in the specimen 
at hand, and to add an account of the frmnel organ which has 
hitherto remained undescribed. The latter is chiefly interesting for 
its relatively anterior position and great size, for in general outline 
it does not specially differ from the usual W-shaped type of organ 
prevalent in most octopod genera. 
As this species has not hitherto been reported from the Pacific, 
there would seem to be strong reasons for doubting its identity with 
the Atlantic A. mollis, if on no other than geographical grounds, yet I 
have been unable to find any characters which could be used in 
separately defining it. Perhaps this 
is due to the obvious immaturity of 
the present specimen, for an indi- 
vidual observed by Verrill (1881, 
p. 420) was nearly 79 cm. in length 
and weighed over 20 pounds, while 
a single dorsal arm recorded by 
Joubin (1900, p. 32) is 161 cm. long. 
An allied form — A. pacificus 
Ijima (see Ijima and Ikeda 1902, 
p. 87, footnote) — ^has been described 
from the Sagami Sea, Japan. The 
chief character advanced by the 
author to separate this form from A . 
mollis is simply that the suckers 
“are arranged in a single row for 
the greater part of the ar'm length, 
being biserially arranged only in the 
free tip.” That, tmless supported by other structural differences, 
this featvue is of no very weighty importance is readily seen upon 
examination of the present specimen, for whereas one author might 
describe the arrangement of the acetabula as unmistakably in two 
rows, another might as positively assert them to be uniserial. The 
truth is that, as Hoyle has shown in the case of Polypus (1886, p. 76; 
1904, p. 18-19), suckers are morphologically to be regarded 
as ranked in a single row, the component members of which have 
undergone a greater or less lateral displacement to each side in 
alternation, the resulting biserial appearance being purely sec- 
ondary. In this respect Alloposus occupies an intermediate position and hence the claims of 
A. pacificus to recognition as a good species can not yet be taken as established, even though 
in the absence of a complete description of the Japanese form it would be premature to unite the 
two dogmatically. 
Fig. 12. — Alloposus mollis [209], out- 
line drawing of funnel laid open 
medioventrally to expose funnel 
organ, natural size. 
Fig. II. — Alloposus mollis, ventral view 
ol small female, from the Pailolo Chan- 
nel 1209], X Drawn by R. I,. Hud- 
son. 
