PINNA PEA-CRAB. 



127 



joint evenly rounded, nearly semicircular. In the variety 

 termed P. Montagui by Dr. Leach, this joint is abruptly 

 broader. In the female the carapace is rounded, broader 

 than it is long, very minutely punctulate ; the front trans- 

 verse, slightly arched, scarcely emarginate at the middle. 

 " The anterior feet with a small spine on the inferior 

 margin of the hand." The abdomen is evenly ovate, 

 broadest at the fourth and fifth joints, broadly carinate 

 along the middle, the last joint emarginate. 

 Colour in both sexes almost uniformly brown. 

 This species differs sufficiently from the former, in either 

 sex, to be distinguished at the first glance. Its habits, 

 however, are perfectly similar, as far as we have an oppor- 

 tunity of knowing them, but it is much less common than 

 the other on our coasts. It was first discovered to be an 

 English species by the indefatigable Montagu, who found 

 both sexes in Pinna: from the Salcombe Estuary in Devon- 

 shire ; and it was subsequently taken by Cranch in the 

 same locality. Vaughan Thompson records its being found 

 on the Irish coast, " both in Pinna and in Modioli^ It 

 has not, as far as I am informed, been found on any other 

 part of the English coast but that already mentioned, nor 

 has it yet been taken in Scotland. 



Its favourite haunt justifies the name which Leach first 

 assigned to it, P. Pinna; although he afterwards very 

 properly adopted the name previously given to it by Bosc. 

 It is found in the Pinna ingens, both on our coast and in 

 the Mediterranean ; it has also been taken in Modioli, and 

 in the common oyster. There can be no doubt that it was 

 of this species that the ancients, aware of its peculiar mode 

 of existence, formed such absurd notions. It is not, in- 

 deed, wonderful that with such imperfect ideas of the value 

 and bearing of natural phenomena, and with a love of the 



