CHEPHALOPODA. 
By S. Stinuman Berry, A.M., Ph.D., Redlands, California. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Through the courtesy of Mr. Charles Hedley, of the Australian Museum, Sydney, 
and its Director, Mr. R. Etheridge, there was placed in my hands for study the collection 
of cephalopods obtained in the course of the scientific explorations carried on by the 
Australasian Expedition to the Antarctic in the ship “ Aurora,” in the years 1911 to 
1914, under the leadership of Sir Douglas Mawson. These form the subject of the 
present report. : 
The collection is rather a small one, yet in point of numbers comprises one of 
the most extensive series of cephalopods which has been obtained in Antarctic waters. 
For one reason and another none of the previous expeditions to this region of the globe 
have been very fortunate along this line, so that even in its entirety the known fauna 
offers few outstanding features other than a striking predominance of octopods. While 
this seems partly to have been due to the relative ease with which these forms may 
be trapped, the more agile decapods escaping the methods available to even the better- 
equipped exploring expeditions, a further reason probably lies in the fact that, as 
pointed out later on, the Antarctic is the metropolis of the genus Moschites. 
Consequently the rather formidable bibliography of Antarctic cephalopods resolves 
itself into a somewhat monotonous catalogue of fragments, stomach contents, penguin 
ejecta, and scattered specimens, with little to suggest any broad facts of distribution 
or other generalizations, or to furnish much of a basis for further investigation. It 
should not be anticipated that the material now brought together for consideration 
serves in any way to revolutionize this state of affairs, for, like the previous collections 
it represents but a nibble here and a nibble there, though it is happily from regions 
(off the coasts of Adelie Land and Queen Mary Land) from which, heretofore, nothing 
has been known, and the very fair number of well-preserved specimens gives at least 
a hint of what to expect when a special effort is made to secure these animals, using 
both apparatus and methods adapted to the end in view. However, we may still affirm 
that the fauna shows no evident relation to that of the Arctic save a superficial 
resemblance or facies, due, no doubt, to the similarity in physical environment. In 
