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GEN. GALACANTHA, A. Milne-Edwards.

1880. Galacantha, A. Milne-Edwards, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoöl., vol. viii., p. 52.

1901. Galacantha, Alcock, loc. cit., p. 274.

1902. Galacantha, Benedict, loc. cit., p. 304.

In Colonel Alcock's work above cited, so far as its date allows, references to authorities are given for the tribe or legion, the family, and the genus, with definitions and other information. Though other writers-Benedict, Hodgson, de Man, C. E. Porter, Calman, Chilton, W. H. Baker, and MacGilchrist-have dealt with members of this family since 1901, no considerable addition appears to have been made to our knowledge of the genus Galacantha. Benedict enumerates seven species: G. camclus, Ortmann, G. diomedea, Faxon, G. faxoni, Benedict, G. investigatoris, Alcock and Anderson, G. rostrata, A. Milne-Edwards, G. spinosa, A. Milne-Edwards, and G. trachynotus, Anderson. The Zoological Record for 1904, Crustacea, p. 32, supplying an omitted record of Illustrations of the Zoology of the Investigator, pt. 9, 1901, quotes G. areolata, Alcock and McArdle, as if Wood-Mason's species had been accepted by those authors. In their explanation, however, of plate lv., on which the name occurs, it will be found that they reduce it to a synonym of G. rostrata, A. M.-E. G. faxoni, Benedict, is a new name for the Albatross specimens which Faxon himself attributed to G. rostrata, though pointing out some small features in which they constantly differed from West Indian examples. Opinions will vary as to the need of a new name. Faxon inclines to behold "in G. rostrata a somewhat variable abyssal species of world-wide distribution, represented on both sides of the Atlantic, off the Pacific coast of America, in the Banda Sea, and in the Bay of Bengal." Alcock evidently agrees with him, not only accepting Henderson's G. bellis and G. talismanii as synonyms of the species, but in addition reducing G. investigatoris to a variety of it. Alcock also regards G. trachynotus as a variety of G. spinosa. On this view there are only four species which can be sharply distinguished.

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GALACANTHA ROSTRATA, A. Milne-Edwards.

1880. Galacantha rostrata, A. M.-E., Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoöl., vol. viii., p. 52.

1886. Munidopsis rostrata, S. I. Smith, Rep. U.S. Fish. Comm. for 1885, p. 649 (45), pl. 6, f. 1.

1900. Galacantha rostrata, M.-E. and Bouvier, Crust. Décap. Travailleur et Talisman, p. 308, pl. 6, f. 9.

Other references and synonyms may be gathered from those already given for the genus. Professor S. I. Smith gives the figure of a male 75 mm. in length. In the lateral view of the carapace he shows a little median denticle in advance of the great gastric spine and another at the base of its hinder slope, neither of which is observable in the South African specimen. The latter is a female with eggs, measuring 88 mm. from tip of rostrum to end of telson, with the carapace 44 mm. long from tip of rostrum to the hind margin, 31.5 mm. broad just behind the cervical groove, 39 mm. between the tips of the hinder spines of the lateral margin. The second antennæ are 135 mm. long, and the right cheliped 56 mm. There was no notable difference in length between the chelipeds.

The lateral spines of the rostrum are well developed and slightly divergent. As in the var. investigatoris, the sixth pleon segment and the telson are tuberculate, though less strongly than the anterior part of the pleon. The fingers of the ambulatory legs are delicately serrate on the concave margin and hairy on the convex one.

Locality. Cape Point N.E. by E. E., 46 miles; depth, about 900 fathoms; bottom, green mud.

This specimen appears to be the largest Galacantha hitherto recorded.

PAGURIDEA.

1905. Paguridea, Alcock, Indian Decap. Crust., Anomura, p. 1.

GEN. CLIBANARIUS, Dana.

1852. Clibanarius, Dana, U.S. Expl. Exp., Crust., vol. xiii., p. 461. 1905. Clibanarius, Alcock, Indian Decap. Crust., Anomura, p. 40.

CLIBANARIUS VULGARIS, Dana.

1791. Cancer clibanarius, Herbst, Krabben u. Krebse, vol. ii., pt. 1, p. 20, pl. 23, fig. 1.

1852. Clibanarius vulgaris, Dana, U.S. Expl. Exp., Crust., vol. xiii., p. 462.

1905. Clibanarius clibanarius, Alcock, Indian Decap. Crust., Anomura, p. 43, pl. 4, fig. 1.

In naming the species Alcock follows Hilgendorf, Henderson, and Miss Rathbun. His key to the Indian species of the genus distinguishes the present by the following combination of characters: finger of the third peræopods decidedly longer than the sixth joint; eye-stalks much shorter than the peduncles of the first antennæ ; inner lower border of the fourth joint in the first peræopods (the chelipeds) simply serrulate.

It

The Durban Museum specimen is a small one, 50 mm. in length. agrees well with Colonel Alcock's full account of the species. Locality. Durban.

GEN. PAGURUS, Fabricius, sensu restricto.

1905. Pagurus, Alcock, Indian Decap. Crust., Anomura, p. 78.

PAGURUS MEGISTOS (Herbst).

1804. Cancer megistos, Herbst, Naturg. Krabben u. Krebse, vol. iii., pt. 4, p. 23, pl. 61, fig. 1.

1811. Pagurus megistos, Olivier, Encycl. Méthod., vol. viii., p. 639. 1811. Pagurus punctulatus, Olivier, Encycl. Méth., vol. viii., p. 641; Atlas (1818), pl. 312, fig. 1.

1847. Pagurus megistos, White, List of Crust. in Brit. Mus., p. 60. 1905. Pagurus punctulatus, Alcock, Indian Decap. Crust., Anomura, p. 81, pl. 8, fig. 1.

1907. Dardanus megistos, M. J. Rathbun, notes to Stimpson's North Pacific Crust., Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. xlix., p. 205. A very full synonymy, excellent description and figure, are supplied in Alcock's work. In the Museum specimen from Durban the eye-stalks are purplish blue, and the long bristles which beset the chelipeds and walking-legs are, after years in spirit, still a rich red. The numerous ocellate markings are also conspicuous.

The species is interesting in connexion with that eastern ingenuity which appears to have imposed upon Herbst, or his draughtsman, to give this fine Pagurid a broad symmetrical tail-fan. The handsome

composite coloured drawing in Herbst's plate 61, fig. 1, represents certainly no known crustacean, and Milne-Edwards (Hist. Nat. Crust., vol. ii., p. 237, 1837) speaks of it as an imaginary species, writing the name as Cancer megistus, Herbst, and Pagurus megistus, Olivier, while recognising its approximation to Olivier's P. punctulatus. Miers (Crust. of H.M.S. Alert, p. 555, 1884) on the same ground rejects Adam White's identification. But in this matter injustice has been done to Herbst. For not only is his description of the species free from acceptance of the faulty tail-piece, but he seems to be unaware of it, for he says: "The hind body is thick, and has above six plates; these are pale red with white brown-ringed spots; the double claw at the end is again dark red with white spots." No one would speak of the uropods displayed in the figure as a double claw. Moreover, Herbst's description is included in a special section of his work devoted to the "Weichschwänze," or soft-tailed crustaceans, which he notes as having been grouped by Fabricius under the name Pagurus. This fourth part of his third volume was the last which Herbst lived to publish, and in the second section of it, which contains his Cancer megistos, he admits that the subject is in need of further study. Alcock remarks that "this is the largest species of the true Paguridæ of the Indian fauna," so that Herbst's name for it was quite appropriate, and it seems fair that it should be reinstated.

Henderson (Trans. Linn. Soc. London, Zool., Ser. 2, vol. v., pt. 10, p. 419, 1893), though retaining the name P. punctulatus, says, "the Cancer megistos figured by Herbst is undoubtedly a representation of the present species, but the draughtsman has supplied it with an altogether fanciful abdomen."

The two descriptions given by Olivier differ in that his P. punctulatus from the Isle of Timor has a little median tooth on the front of the carapace of which the P. megistos specimen from the Cape is devoid, and in that to this latter he attributes eye-peduncles little elongate, while in the Timor specimen they are said to be thick and tolerably long.

PAGURUS ARROSOR (Herbst).

1796. Cancer arrosor, Herbst, Naturg. Krabben u. Krebse, vol. ii., pt. 6, p. 170, pl. 43, fig. 1.

1802. Pagurus strigosus, Bosc., Hist. Nat. Crust., vol. ii., p. 77, pl. 11, fig. 3, and P. arrosor, p. 80.

1803. Pagurus striatus, Latreille, Hist. Nat. Crust. et Insectes, vol. vi., p. 163, and P. arrosor, p. 170.

1811. Pagurus incisus, Olivier, Encycl. Méth., vol. viii., p. 641. 1826. Pagurus incisus, Audouin, Savigny's Crust. d'Égypte, pl. 9,

fig. 1.

1888. Pagurus striatus, Henderson, Challenger Anomura, Reports, vol. xxvii., p. 55.

1900. Pagurus arrosor, A. Milne-Edwards and Bouvier, Crust. Decap. Travailleur et Talisman, p. 178.

1905. Pagurus arrosor, Alcock, Indian Decap. Crust., pt. 2, p. 168. 1907. Dardanus arrosor, M. J. Rathbun, notes to Stimpson's North Pacific Crust., Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. xlix., p. 206.

As usual an elaborate synonymy is supplied by Alcock, of which only a small part is here given. Various authors, beginning with Latreille (vaguely) in 1803, have recognised the prior claim of Herbst's specific name arrosor, and have nevertheless set it on one side. Latreille took the same liberty with Bosc's strigosus, probably on the ground that the word as used by the Romans meant lean or meagre, not, as Bosc no doubt intended, full of striga. The latter sense would have been appropriate, because in this species the chelipeds and walkinglegs are thickly traversed by scales or scutes resembling the marks left on a plot of grass freshly mown by a scythe. It is, however, worth remembering that this kind of ornamentation is shared by some of the species in two other genera, Aniculus, Dana, and Nematopagurus, Milne-Edwards and Bouvier.

Since this species is met with in all the tropical and subtropical seas, it is not surprising that some forms should have received varietal names. One of these was at first regarded as an independent species by A. Milne-Edwards, under the name Aniculus petersi, 1880. In 1892 Ortmann named a variety pectinata, and in 1906 Moreira adds a var. divergens (Arch. Mus. Nat. Rio de Janeiro, vol. xiii., p. 13, pl. 4, fig. 1), in describing which he speaks of Pagurus insignis, de Saussure, as one of the varieties of P. arrosor.

The species is said to attain a length of 7 or 8 inches. MilneEdwards and Bouvier remark in regard to the collections they were examining, that it seems to attain its greatest dimensions towards Spain, and to become more and more reduced in proceeding to Senegal. The largest specimen sent by Dr. Gilchrist from South Africa is 87 mm. long, with a carapace 35 mm. in length. With this was a very small specimen. Some small specimens from Durban belong to the Durban Museum.

Locality (of large specimen). Great Fish Point Lighthouse, N. W., 2 miles; depth, 30 fathoms; bottom, mud.

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