50 Annals of the South African Museum. 



1906. Stylodactylidae, Rathbun, Bull. U.S. Fish Comm. for 1903, 



pt. 3, p. 927. 



1907. Borradaile, Ann. Nat. Hist., Ser. 7, vol. 19, 



p. 466 ; Stylodactyloida, pp. 467, 471. 

 1914. ,, Balss, Abhandl. K. Bayer, Ak. Wiss., Suppl. 



vol. 2, pt. 10, p. 26. 



In tbis family remarkable characters are furnished by the 

 second maxillipeds and the first two pairs of peraeopods. 

 According to Bate the second maxilliped " terminates in two 

 branches, subequal in size and importance," though his figure 

 qualifies the subequality by showing one branch nearly twice 

 as long as the other. From his specific descriptions it is 

 evident that be regarded both branches as representing the 

 seventh joint. Borradaile takes a different view, assigning to 

 this family " second maxillipeds with the sixth and seventh 

 joints articulating separately on fifth." Against this explana- 

 tion it may be urged that the short curved joint which follows 

 the long third joint has the appearance of being actually 

 representative of the fifth joint. Bate speaks of it as 

 "analogous to the carpos." But if the third joint be in 

 reality composite, ischium and merus in one, the following 

 joint will be the true fifth. Whatever their numerical posi- 

 tion, the two terminal branches are very anomalous. Dr. 

 Caiman has suggested to me that the smaller branch may be 

 a process of the sixth joint which has become movable, like 

 the thumb of the first peraeopod in the genus Psalidopus, 

 Wood-Mason. In the first and second peraeopod the palm 

 has dwindled to the shortest span, and the long slender setose 

 fingers lie so closely one upon the other that the ordinary 

 function of chelae as grasping organs seems almost out of the 

 question. 



GEN. STYLODACTYLUS, A. Milne-Edwards. 



1881. Stylodactylus , A. M.-Edwards, Ann. Sci. Nat., Ser. 6, vol. 11, 



art. 4, p. 11. 

 1888. ,, Bate, Rep. Voy. Challenger, vol. 24, pp. 481, 



850. 



Milne-Edwards established the genus for a single species, 

 S. serratus, though giving precedence in 1883 to another 

 species, S. rectirostris, on Plate 35 of his " Eecueil de Figures 

 de Crustaces Nouveaux ou peu connus," S. serratus being 



