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PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. IX, April, 1955 
and it is unfortunate that the same question 
should have been revived by the specimens 
which Stephensen (1935) and Shoemaker 
(1936) have described. 
Stephensen figures specimens of what he 
calls Talitrus sylvaticus from the Marquesas 
Islands. In using Hunt’s key he has rightly 
decided that his specimens are not T. dorrieni 
and has come to the conclusion that there is 
no "important difference” between them and 
Sayce’s. I would dispute this on the grounds 
I have already given for considering Sayce’s 
specimens identical with Hunt’s. 
Shoemaker (1936) figured a specimen of 
T. sylvaticus from the United States and his 
figure of the outer lobe of the maxilliped 
leaves no doubt that his specimens also differ 
from those at hand from New Zealand, from 
Hunt’s and Sayce’s. (Schellenberg, 1942, re- 
produces these figures.) Shoemaker remarks 
that "Chilton . . . figures [the maxilliped 
outer] plate as narrow and distally acute with 
the inside margin concave. This is a very 
peculiar discrepancy which I cannot account 
for.” Shoemaker’s and Stephensen’s figures 
are identical for all appendages, particularly 
the maxilliped palp. The outer plate of the 
maxilliped figured by Shoemaker cannot be 
considered to answer to Sayce’s specifications 
of "rapidly narrowing.” Furthermore, I am 
convinced Sayce would not have overlooked 
a 3rd pleopod such as they figure to the extent 
of saying "no vestige of a third pair is to be 
found.” Specimens in Chilton’s collection 
from Fingal’s Bay, like those from Hunter’s 
Hill mentioned by Chilton (1923) as having 
pleopod 3 "quite small, with the branches 
vestigial,” agree with Shoemaker’s in the max- 
illiped. Thus the Norfolk and Fingal’s Bay 
specimens, Shoemaker’s and Stephensen’s all 
agree very closely. They differ from T. sylva- 
ticus in the maxilliped, both outer plate and 
palp; in the 3rd uropods; the 3rd pleopods 
(note the constancy in gross shape here 
again) ; the epimeral plates; the gills of peraeo- 
pod 4; and the shape of the spine between 
the rami of uropod 1. 
Fig. 3. Talitrus pacificus n. sp. a, Maxilliped; b, 
maxilliped, tip of palp; c, maxilliped, end of outer plate; 
d , uropod 1, inter-ramal spine. 
Reid (1947) figures T. dorrieni , T. alluaudi 
and T. hortulanus , each with only one long 
spine on the peduncle of the third uropod, 
and throughout the genus the number of 
large spines on the peduncle seems reason- 
ably constant. Hunt’s specimens and those 
from New Zealand show one spine. Shoe- 
maker’s and Stephensen’s show three. Chil- 
ton’s specimens have both, but those with 
maxillipeds as in Hunt’s T. dorrieni figures 
have one spine and those with the Marquesan 
type maxillipeds have three. 
The epimeral plates figured by Stephensen 
and Shoemaker differ from those figured by 
Hunt and those of the New Zealand spec- 
imens. 
The long spine, commonly found in Tali- 
tridae, between the rami of the first uropod 
is extremely distinctive in Shoemaker’s and 
Stephensen’s specimens because of its terminal 
spur and accessory blade. The spine in T. 
sylvaticus and T. kershawi is quite simple with 
only the slightest curving of the tip. 
