the sixth pleon segment in this form is simple, without division into two, whether teeth or tubercles.

By depending on a minute system of comparative measurements one might perhaps in this genus found several species upon specimens very closely connected in their actual origin.

A specimen 79 mm. long was procured at a depth between 750 and 800 fathoms, Cape Point N.E. by E. E. 38 miles; bottom, green mud. At the same locality, but in a different haul, a specimen measuring (with tip of rostrum broken) 92 mm. was obtained, this being a female with eggs, very much more bulky than the preceding. At a neighbouring station, Cape Point N. 77° E., depth 660 to 700 fathoms, bottom green mud, a similar female specimen was obtained, measuring 107 mm. in length. Lastly, a quite slender specimen, 74 mm. long, was obtained on similar ground, between 720 and 800 fathoms, Cape Point by D.R. N.E. E. 40 miles.

Practically all the specimens, both those assigned to G. sculptus and those to G. longirostris, were obtained in the same vicinity, on ground of one character, and at considerable depths. Professor Smith describes a female of G. sculptus 108 mm. long, and the same sex of G. longirostris 107 mm. in length. Should one of the species have to be cancelled, it is the latter that must fall, since G. sculptus has page precedence.

FAMILY PALEMONIDE.

1905. Palæmonida, Coutière, Ann. Sci. Nat. Zool., Ser. 8, vol. xii., p. 249.

In his treatise here cited, on "Les Palæmonidæ des eaux douces de Madagascar," Professor Coutière supplies a long bibliography of this family from de Haan in 1836 down to the year 1900.

GEN. MACROTEROCHEIR, nom. nov.

1891. Palamon (Macrobrachium), Ortmann, Zool. Jahrb., vol. v., pp. 696, 733.

1897. Macrobrachium (sub-gen.), Ortmann, Revista do Museu Paulista, N. 2, p. 199.

1905. Palamon (Macrobrachium), Coutière, Ann. Sci. Nat., Ser. 8, vol. xii., pp. 252, 267, 273, 287.

Spence Bate, in the Challenger Macrura, p. 788, 1888, reduces to a synonym of Bithynis, Philippi, the genus which, in 1868 (Proc.

Zool. Soc. London, p. 363), he had named Macrobrachium. In reviving the name for a sub-genus or group," Ortmann does not appear to have included under it any of the species originally assigned to it by Bate himself. The first of these was M. americanum, which in Ortmann's system becomes Palamon (Brachycarpus) jamaicensis (Herbst), and is named Bithynis jamaicensis by Miss Rathbun in 1901. Bate's M. formosense and M. longidigitum are referred to Eupalamon, M. africanum is made a synonym of Bithynis gaudichaudii (Milne-Edwards). M. gangeticum, insufficiently described, is not mentioned, but would probably be referred to Eupalamon. Under the circumstances the retention of the hybrid name Macrobrachium does not seem justifiable, and I have substituted for it a name implying that in this genus one member of the pair of large chelipeds decidedly exceeds the other in size.

Coutière says: "The group Macrobrachium is well characterised in general by the palm [of the second peræopods] compressed, oval, broader than the carpus at its distal end, which gives the most differentiated species of this group the aspect of Astacidæ (P. lepidactylus). The carpus and meropodite, each distally inflated, are in general nearly equal." He adds the caution that young forms, and also the adults of certain species, resemble species of Parapalamon and Eupalamon by the feeble compression and small breadth of the palm.

MACROTEROCHEIR LEPIDACTYLUS (Hilgendorf).

1878. Palamon lepidactylus, Hilgendorf, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, p. 838, pl. 4, figs. 14–16.

1891. Palamon lepidactylus, Ortmann, Zool. Jahrb., vol. v., p. 735. 1905. Palamon (Macrobrachium) lepidactylus, Coutière, Ann. Sci. Nat. Ser. 8, vol. xii., p. 272, pl. 10, pl. 11, figs. 13, 13a. Coutière includes in the synonymy Palemon lepidactyloides, de Man, 1892 (in Max Weber's Zool. Ergebn. Niederl. Ost-Indien, vol. ii., p. 497, pl. 29, fig. 51). The careful comparison which he institutes of a large number of specimens makes it fairly certain. that there is no need for two specific names.

In a large dried specimen from the Durban Museum the rostrum has 13 teeth above and 2 below, its apex fully reaching the end of the peduncle of the first antennæ, the teeth not nearly reaching. the middle of the carapace. The great left-hand cheliped has a total length of about 190 mm., the movable finger being 45 mm.

and the dorsal margin of the palm 40 mm. In bulk this appendage appears nearly to equal all the rest of the animal, which has a length of 140 mm., the carapace including rostrum being 60 mm. The outer ramus of the uropods is rather longer than the inner. The broad brushes of hairs within the concave finger and thumb of the smaller cheliped are a striking feature.

Another dried specimen measures 113 mm. in length, with large cheliped 134 mm. long, finger 33 mm. and back of palm 31 mm.; upper teeth of rostrum 13. From Umgeni lagoon (Natal). Durban Museum. A third specimen, from the Durban Museum and Durban waters, 140 mm. long, with 12 upper teeth on the rostrum, has the large cheliped on the right side, with the finger 38 mm. long, and back of palm only 25 mm.

GEN. EUPALÆMON, Ortmann.

1891. Palamon (Eupalamon) (group),

vol v., pp. 696, 697.

Ortmann, Zool. Jahrb.,

1897. Eupalamon (sub-gen.), Ortmann, Revista do Museu Paulista, N. 2, p. 196.

1905. Palamon (Eupalamon), Coutière, Ann. Sci. Nat., Ser. 8,

vol. xii., pp. 252, 266, 273, 287.

EUPALEMON RUDIS (Heller).

1862. Palamon rudis, Heller, Verh. Zool. bot. Gesell. Wien, p. 527. 1866. Palamon rudis, Heller, Reise Novara Crust., p. 114.

1878. Palamon Mossambicus, Hilgendorf, Monatsb. Ak. Wiss. Berlin, p. 839, pl. 4, fig. 17.

1891. Palamon (Eupalamon) rudis (?), Ortmann, Zool. Jahrb., vol. v., pp. 699, 716.

1891. Palamon (Macrobrachium) mossambicus, Ortmann, Zool. Jahrb., vol. v. p. 741.

1905. Palamon (Eupalæmon) rudis, Coutière, Ann. Sci. Nat., Ser. 8, vol. xii., pp. 273, 288, pl. 12, figs. 23, 24.

The first of the above references I have not seen, and for the identification of Hilgendorf's species with the earlier name given by Heller I have been guided by Professor Coutière's discussion. He gives the following characters as distinctive of E. rudis. In common with other members of the group, sub-genus, or genus, it has the second pair of feet cylindrical, rarely unsymmetrical, fifth joint longer than the fourth, palm not depressed, cylindrical. In common with E. ida (Heller) it has the carapace scabrous, but it has

the fifth joint of the second pair of feet shorter than the chela, not longer as in P. ide, and for further distinction the fingers are not short but as long as the palm, armed with two rows of tubercles, and the chela covered with hairy felt. Hilgendorf himself recognised the close approximation of his species to Heller's P. rudis, but found the chelæ free from felt.

A specimen from Durban agrees with the characters given by Coutière, except that the felting appears to be almost completely worn off. The rostral carina, which reaches slightly beyond the outer tooth of the antennal plate, has 12 teeth above and 4 below. The flagellum of the second antennæ is 180 mm. long, the body of the creature having a length of 125 mm. The long chelipeds are almost exactly equal, the fourth joint 50, the fifth 70, and the sixth 110 mm. long. The finger has a length of 58 mm. The apices of finger and thumb are curved and cross one another, the inner margins otherwise in closure being closely applied.

Locality. Durban. Two much smaller specimens from the same waters appear to agree well with the one above noticed in general character.

SCHIZOPODA.

1885. Schizopoda, Sars, Challenger Schizopoda, Reports, vol. xiii.

FAMILY LOPHOGASTRIDE.

1885. Lophogastridæ, Sars, Challenger Schizopoda, Reports, vol. xiii., p. 13.

1905. Lophogastride (sub-order), H. J. Hansen, Bull. Mus. de Monaco, No. 30, p. 5.

1906. Lophogastride, Ortmann, Proc. U.S. Mus., vol. xxxi., p. 23.

GEN. GNATHOPHAUSIA, von Willemoes Suhm.

1875. Gnathophausia, von Willemoes Suhm, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, Ser. 2, vol. i., pt. 1, p. 28.

1885. Gnathophausia, Sars, Challenger Schizopoda, Reports, vol. xiii., p. 20.

1905. Gnathophausia, Holt and Tattersall, Ann. Rep. Fish. Ireland, 1902-3, pt. 2, App. 4, p. 123.

1906. Gnathophausia, Ortmann, Proc. U.S. Mus., vol. xxxi., p. 27. Sars, who, by an obvious misprint, makes the date of the genus. 1879 instead of 1875, gives a synopsis of nine species. Ortmann,

twenty-one years later, offers a synopsis still including the same number of species. The two lists are not in entire agreement, but very near to one another, although in the interval several species had been recorded in addition to those mentioned by Sars. Ortmann, however, disposes of them as follows. He regards G. bengalensis, Wood-Mason, 1891, as a synonym of G. calcarata, Sars, G. brevi spinis, Wood-Mason and Alcock, 1891, and G. dentata, Faxon, 1893, as synonyms of G. gracilis, Suhm, and G. drepanephora, Holt and Tattersall, 1905, as the young stage of G. gigas, Suhm. He reduces G. sarsi, Wood-Mason, 1891, to a variety of G. zoëa, Suhm, and makes G. willemoesi, Sars, a synonym of that species, finally restoring the impaired total by himself instituting a new species, G. scapularis.

GNATHOPHAUSIA CALCARATA, G. O. Sars.

1883. Gnathophausia calcarata, Sars, Forh. Selsk. Christiania, No. 7, p. 5.

calcarata, Sars, Challenger Schizopoda,

1885. Gnathophausia calcarata, Sars,

Reports, vol. xiii., p. 35, pl. 4.

1906. Gnathophausia calcarata, Ortmann, Proc. U.S. Mus., vol. xxxi., pp. 27, 30, pl. 1, fig. 2a-f.

The specimen has the antennal scale shaped exactly as figured by Sars for this species. There are, however, seven unequal teeth on the outer margin, where Sars speaks of five or six and Ortmann of three to six. The rostrum is broken, but the remaining proximal portion is consistent with an elongate termination. The lower hind angles of the carapace are produced as long serrate spines. The epimeral plate of the sixth pleon segment appears to be intermediate. between those represented in Ortmann's figures 2c and 2d. Ortmann had the advantage of examining 40 specimens, ranging from 42 mm. to about 115 mm. in length, and he found considerable variation due to age in the ventral epimeral plate of the sixth pleon segment, so that it was only in old specimens that the bifid points of the epimera have the inner point much shorter than the outer. In G. ingens (Dohrn) the inner point is slightly the longer, but Ortmann supposes it possible that in very old females G. calcarata may assume this character, in which case the latter name would become a synonym of G. ingens, there being no other stable distinction between the two.

Length of specimen 62 mm., but had the rostrum been complete and as long as the rest of the carapace, the total length would have been at least 80 mm.