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SOUTH AFRICAN CRUSTACEA. 



BY THE 



Rev. THOMAS R. R. STEBBING, 



M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



When about two years ago I received from Dr. Gilchrist 

 the first of the Crustacea which he has been sending me from 

 South African waters, the hope entered my mind that in 

 course of time I might be able to produce a systematic 

 review of the whole carcinological fauna of the region over 

 which the Government of Cape Colony is extending its 

 scientific investigations. It has now, however, become clear 

 to me that such a plan would not only involve very serious 

 delay before any results could be published, but would also 

 have little chance of securing that completeness and finality 

 for the sake of which the delay might be justified. On the 

 very eve of publication an inconsiderate trawl might bring 

 up from the vasty deep a miscellaneous assortment of the 

 unknown and the unexpected, and the symmetry of the main 

 treatise would have to be destroyed by an appendix of odds 

 and ends more interesting and more important perhaps than 

 anything contained in the methodical catalogue. Forsaking, 

 therefore, more ambitious projects, I offer the present report 

 as an instalment in which the student may possibly find 

 some points worthy of his notice. Should other instalments 

 follow, the inconvenience arising from a somewhat desultory 

 mode of publication may in the end be remedied wholly or to 

 a great extent by a satisfactory index. In the higher groups 

 of the Malacostraca the recent systematic labours of Dr. 

 Ortmann and Major Alcock may be said to hold the field. 

 Accepting their decisions as to large sections, I here confine 

 my own comments chiefly to genera and species. 



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