A MISNOMER AND A MISAPPREHENSION 135 



Dromia, as restricted by Stimpson, these suici are ' not 

 approximated, only produced as far as the segment which 

 bears the second pair of legs.' The carapace in this genus 

 is subglobose and usually hairy. Fabricius, in describing 

 Dromia Rumphii as the type species from the East Indies, 

 says that it hides in the sand holding the valve of a shell 

 over its body with its hind feet, and so lies in wait for 

 little fishes. It was called Cancer dormia by Linnagus, 

 perhaps in allusion to the widely prevailing idea that it 

 is poisonous and narcotic. Herbst, for this reason, im- 

 proved the LinDgeaii name into Cancer dormitator, meaning 

 the crab that sends you to sleep, for he rejected a previous 

 improvement of the name into dromia, on the ground that 

 to call it the running crab was to name it quite in contra- 

 diction to its habits. In spite of, or in ignorance of, this 

 criticism, Fabricius converted the specific name dromia 

 into the name of the genus, which holds its ground not- 

 withstanding the inappropriateness to a creature of espe- 

 cially sluggish habits. 



Dromia vulgaris, Milne-Edwards, is sometimes taken 

 in English waters. It is very common in the Adriatic, 

 and according to Stalio the ancients were quite mistaken 

 in attributing to it a poisonous character. Herbst seems 

 to have thought the Dromia Rumphii ' by the hand of 

 nature marked, quoted and signed, to do a deed of shame,' 

 for, after describing its rough, brown, furry coat, its short, 

 thick legs, and the last pair armed with sharp-pointed 

 claw like a scorpion's tail, he adds that ' everything con- 

 tributes to give this crab a repulsive and horrible appear- 

 ance, perhaps to scare men from eating it, since it is very 

 poisonous.' He subsequently noticed that when stripped 

 of its fur it lost its grimness of aspect. 



The habit of concealment that runs through this 

 family is referred to in several of the generic names, as in 

 Cryptodromia, Stimpson, 1858, the concealed Dromia, in 

 Hypoconcha, Guerin Meneville, 1854, the crab under a 

 shell, in Conchoecetes, Stimpson, 1858, the shell-dweller. 

 Among the Crustacea collected a few years back by 

 Surgeon-Major Archer on the sand and mud banks north 



