192 A HISTORY OF RECENT CRUSTACEA 



short, squamiform. The mandibles have a one-jointed 

 ' palp.' The trunk-legs are simple, except the fifth pair 

 in the female, which are minutely chelate. 



To this family there are assigned six or seven genera, 

 one of which is occasionally met with in the waters of 

 Great Britain. In this and other families in which the 

 fifth pair of legs are chelate in the females only, they are 

 supposed to be so constructed to assist in rupturing the 

 ovisac, and liberating the embryo from the ovum. Bell 

 explains the unusual structure of the second antennas by 

 suggesting that they have been developed into broad flat 

 organs of natation, and probably also constitute a pair 

 of shovels for the purpose of burrowing. 



Scyllarus, Fabricius, 1793, has been much subdivided 

 since its first institution. As re-defined by Dana, it has 

 the rostrum very salient, the sides of the carapace not 

 incised, the second antennas almost contiguous, the exopod 

 of the third maxillipeds ending in a lash ; the pairs of 

 branchiae twenty-one. 



In various writers the expression will be found in such 

 definitions as the above, that the palp of the third maxil- 

 lipeds is or is not furnished with a.jiagellum. Now Pro- 

 fessor Huxley in ' The Crayfish ' says that, in the terms 

 usually applied to the maxillipeds by writers on descriptive 

 zoology, ' the exopodite is the palp, and the metamor- 

 phosed podobranchia, the real nature of which is not 

 recognised, is termed the flagellum.' It must therefore 

 be borne in mind that the flagellum mentioned by Huxley 

 as an equivalent to the podobranchia or epipod on the first 

 joint is quite distinct from the flagellum of the exopod, 

 the term being used in the latter instance merely to signify 

 a whip-like termination, a many-jointed, more or less flexi- 

 ble lash. 



Scyllarus laius (Rondelet), Latreille, is found in the 

 Mediterranean and Atlantic. It is said sometimes to 

 attain a length of a foot and a half, and to be delicious 

 food, superior to the lobster itself. Patrick Browne in his 

 ' History of Jamaica,' calls it ' The Mother Lobster,' and 

 Petiver designates it, ' the great broad warty crab.' In 



