REPORT ON THE CRUSTACEA MACRURA. 



f.N!> 



smooth, and the carpos of the second pair of pereiopoda uniarticulate, according to 

 Milne-Edwards' figure and description. 



Dr. Stimpson ' described a new genns founded on Hippolyte acuminata, Dana, 

 under the name of Verbius, in which he placed Hippolyte varians as one of the 

 recognised typical forms. This arrangement has been followed by Heller, 2 for he figures 

 Hippolyte varians, Leach, as Verbius varians ; by Miers, 3 by Mr. J. S. Kingsley in his 

 list of North American Crustacea, 4 and in his revision of the genera of Crangonidse and 

 Palajinonidae, 5 and more lately by Professor Sars.° Dr. Stimpson establishes his genus 

 Hippolyte on Fabricius' species of Cancer aculeatus, which corresponds with the forms 

 of Milne-Edwards' third division of Hippolyte, in which also falls Sowerby's species of 

 Cancer spinus. The latter species Kingsley 7 regards as the type of the genus 

 Hippolyte. It is to be regretted that neither Stimpson nor Kingsley gave priority to 

 Leach's definition of Hippolyte, 8 and which was founded on the species known as 

 Hip>polyte varians, in 1815. In the same volume in which this definition appeared, 

 Sowerby's prawn was named Alpheus spinus 9 by Leach, and therefore at that time 

 it was not recognised as belonging to Hippolyte, and it was not until he published the 

 twenty-ninth plate of his Malacostraca Podophthalmia Britannica, a work which came out 

 in parts between 1815 and 1817, that Sowerby's Cancer spinus was named Hippolyte 

 soxverbiei. 



Undoubtedly Hippolyte varians, Leach, and Cancer spinus, Sowerby, belong to 

 two distinct genera, a fact that was probably recognised by Leach himself when he 

 placed the latter, under the name of Hippohjte soiverbeei, in a second division of 

 Hippolyte. This arrangement was followed by MUne-Edwards, who divided Hippolyte 

 into three divisions, placing Hippolyte varians in the first, and Hippolyte sowerbyi 

 in the third division. 



Extended research has undoubtedly justified the division of the genus, upon purely 

 anatomical grounds, into distinct genera. 



When Leach first described the genus he had only one specimen to classify, and 

 that was sent to him by Montagu from Devonshire, and this specimen he states to be 

 the type of the genus. The specimen that he had named Alpheus spinus, the " Cancer 

 spinus" of Sowerby, he evidently saw approached nearer to the new genus Hippolyte 

 than to Alpjheus ; he therefore made a division and arranged it within the genus upon 

 grounds which would not now be accepted, namely, the number of teeth on the dorsal 

 surface of the telson, the number of articuli of the second pair of pereipoda and the 

 presence of a synaphipod on the mandible. 



1 Loc. cit 



3 Loc. cit. 



6 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., 



7 Loc. cit., p. 419. 

 9 Loc. cit., p. 347. 



p. 421, 1879. 



2 Loc. cit, taf. x. fig. 4. 



4 Bulletin Essex Inst, vol. x. p. 63. 



Loc. cit. 



8 Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., vol. ix. p. 346. 



