22 
SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
Dana’s Melita tenuicornis , in which the third uropods were 
supposed to have only one branch, to Mcera, in which the two 
branches are undoubtedly both well developed. Miers in 1875 
founded a genus Paramcera for a species supposed to have unira- 
mous uropods, but in which he subsequently found that they 
were biramous. This species he transferred to Atylus , while 
retaining the genus for Melita tenuicornis. In 1878, however, 
G. M. Thomson stated that this New Zealand species, of which he 
claimed to have examined perfect specimens, “ must be replaced 
in the genus proposed by its original describer, Dana, viz., MelitaP 
The conclusion rests on the supposition that Dana overlooked 
the secondary appendage of the antennae and the small inner 
ramus of the uropods. It is by no means an improbable conclu¬ 
sion, although Dana’s specimens from the Bay of Islands were 
“found along the shores between high and low water level,” 
whereas Thomson’s “ were taken in the Taieri river in fresh water, 
but they had probably come up with the tide, which is felt 15 
miles from the mouth.” (Trans. New Zealand Inst., vol. XI., 
p. 241). The case is somewhat complicated by the circumstance that 
Dana describes as female ? the form which has second gnathopods 
characteristic of a male and figures for the male gnathopods of 
a shape to be expected in the female. In the latter form the third 
uropods were broken off. Professor Della Yalle in 1893 enters 
Melita tenuicornis as one of the synonyms of M. palmata , but 
without discussing the absence of a feature conspicuous in the 
latter species, namely, the medio-dorsal tooth on the fourth pleon 
segment. Dana had previously established two species in the 
Proc. Amer. Acad. Sci., vol. II., pp. 214, 215, on the earlier page 
naming Amphitoe {Melita) incequistylis for the supposed female, 
but, as I think, true male, and on the later page Amphitoe {Melita) 
tenuicornis for the other sex. If the two sexes belong together, 
the rule of page precedence will make the name Melita incequi¬ 
stylis . 
MELITA ZEYLANICA , n. sp. 
PI. 5. 
Body compressed, segments smooth, except that the short fifth 
segment of the pleon is a little medio-dorsally notched and 
carries some small inconspicuous spinules. In the female the 
side plates of the sixth perason segment are hooked as in Melita 
palmata , but less strongly. 
The eyes are round, dark, rather small. 
The first antennas have the long second joint a little longer 
than the first and fully twice the length of the third, the flagellum 
of about twenty joints in the male and fourteen in the female, the 
