36 



The only intormation supplied by de Haan is that, whereas 

 the flagella of the palps of the third maxillipeds are ovate- 

 oblong in Ho mar us vulgaris, they are elongate in " Honiarus 

 capensts, Nephrops, Astacus^ Axia." 



Krauss adds nothing to our knowledge of Astams capensts 

 except the negative evidence that he had never seen it in 

 Natal. 



Huxley, in "The Crayfish," p. 332, 3rd Ed., 1881, inci- 

 dentally remarks that the genera Ho mar us and Nephrops *' are 

 exclusively confined to the northern hemisphere," a statement 

 inconsistent with the existence of the little Cape Lobster, to 

 which he here makes no allusion. In the proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society, however, Huxley says : — " I must confess 

 myself to be in a state of hopeless perplexity respecting the 

 Crayfish or Lobster, which is said to occur at the Cape of 

 Good Hope, Cancer [Asiacus] capensis of Herbst," and as to 

 Herbst's statement that all the legs are chelate he observes 

 that " it is impossible to suppose that Herbst should have 

 made a mistake on such a point as this." But mistakes are 

 never impossible, and in regard to the presence or absence of 

 minute chelae they are rather exceptionally easy to make, 

 especially when only a dried specimen is examined. 



Herbst quotes no authority for the declaration that his 

 species lives in mountain streams, at which he would not 

 have felt surprise, since on the one hand he probably 

 regarded it rather as a crayfish than a lobster, and on the 

 other hand he elsewhere speaks of lobsters living in the 

 rivers in Chili. But the existence of fresh water lobsters still 

 awaits corroboration. Of the two specimens, a male and a 

 female, which I consider to be ^istacus capensis, the male was 

 labelled as coming from Table Bay, and more particularly 

 described as having been " got in rock-pool at Sea Point, a 

 village a few miles from Cape Town." Dr. Gilchrist sub- 

 sequently took pains " to verify that it was found in a salt 

 water rock-pool." The female was also from the Cape, but 

 without more special indication of locality. The male 

 specimen when first received in England retained plentiful 

 traces of a rich red colouring. This unfortunately disappears 

 in spirit. It is, however, a character which combines with 

 the general proportions and the structure of the fi-ont 

 chelipeds to produce conviction that this specimen and its 

 companion belong to the species described by Herbst. That 

 they belong to the species described by Milne-Edwards there 

 can be no doubt, since they agree with his description at all 

 points. Dr. Gilchrist in answer to my enquiries writes, " It 



