48 Annals of the South African Museum. 



plate much narrower than the outer, and the second pleopod has the 

 masculine appendix attached just above the middle of the inner margin 

 of the inner ramus. It descends a little below the ramus, and here has 

 the apex not acute, but rounded. The outer ramus of the uropod is 

 fringed with setae and has five spines on each margin. It is shorter 

 than the inner ramus and only about half as broad. The inner 

 ramus is fringed with about a dozen spines and numerous plumose 

 seise. 



Length, about 7 mm. 



Locality. Between Bird Island and mainland, in 10-16 fathoms. 



The specific name alludes to the escutcheon-shaped frontal lamina. 



FAMILY SPH^ROMID^E. 



1902. Splueromid, Stebbing, S.A. Crust., pt. 2, p. 64. 



1904. Sph&romidce, Stebbing, Gardiner's Fauna of Maldive and 



Lace. Arch., vol. ii., pt. 3, p. 710. 



1905. SphcsromidcB, Stebbing, Herdman's Rep. Ceylon Pearl Fisheries, 



pt. iv., Isopoda, p. 29. 



1905. SphcBromida, H. Richardson, Bulletin U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 54, 

 p. 270. 



1905. Sphc&romida (part), H. J. Hansen, Quart. J. Microsc. Sci., 



vol. xlix., pt. 1, p. 69. 



1906. SphceromidcB, Nobili, Bull. Mus. d'Hist. Nat., No. 5, p. 268. 



The present occasion is not appropriate for giving a full biblio- 

 graphy of recent contributions to this family. Dr. Hansen has made 

 it the subject of a highly important revision, dividing it in the larger 

 sense into three sub-families Limnoriinae, Sphaerominaa, Plakar- 

 thriinae. In the second of these, with which we are here concerned, 

 he distinguishes three groups Sph. hemibranchiatae, eubranchiatae, 

 and platybranchiatse. It is to the purpose here to notice that in the 

 first group Hansen accepts Sphceroma terebrans. Bate, Exo- 

 sphceroma gigas (Leach), E. lanceolatum (White), and possibly E. 

 scabriculum (Heller), but he regards my E. validum, and E. setulosum 

 as respectively the young male and the female of a species of 

 Cymodoce, to which genus he likewise refers my E. amplifrons. 

 Parasphceroma premiums, Stebbing, is placed by Hansen in the 

 third group. 



With regard to Heller's species Hansen says : " In a species from 

 Simon's Bay, at Cape, closely allied to or identical with Sphceroma 

 scabriculum (Hell.), the end of abdomen in the female is as in Exo- 



