io 6 



are scatterecl about: the breadth of the meropodite is about one-third of its length; a subdistal, 

 rectangular prominence is found at the anterior margin. Carpo- and propodite together are as 

 long as the meropodite, and the daciyli are very long, longer than the preceding joint, quadrangular 

 in transverse section, slightly curved and armed with four rows of spines. 



Usually the walking legs are beset with stiff and long bristles, but in the specimen here 

 fio-ured the leo-s are al most completely hairless. As has been remarked above, this specimen 

 is also remarkable by the numerous granules on the carapace and by the somewhat flattened 

 front. I think these differences, however, to be merely individual and of no particular importance, 

 for I examined a small cf in the Leiden Museum, collected at Pulu Weh, in which the carapace 

 is still more extensively studded with granules and the front more distinctly flattened, but the 

 walking legs are hairy in the usual way. 



The chelipeds are always of a reddish-yellow colour, like the sternum ; the carapace 

 and the legs are of the same violet-bluish tint as occurs in Cardisoma, but some specimens 

 have a uniformly-reddish carapace, in others it is of the general ground-colour of the chelipeds, 

 but mottled and marbled by violet blotches. The latter case occurs in the specimen depicted. 



This species was first collected at the Nicobars, Miers recorded it afterwards from 

 Duke-of-York Island (north of Samoa), de Man from Morotai (near Halmaheira) and Alcock 

 acrain from the Nicobars. Besides the Morotai specimen there is in the collection of the Leiden 

 Museum a young cf from Pulu Weh (north of Sumatra,, collected by Mr. Buitendijk in 

 January 191 i. lts habits are unknown. 



Dimensions in mm. : 



Distance betvveen external orbital angles . 



Greatest width of carapace 



Length of carapace 



Width of anterior margin of front 



Cardisoma Latreille. 



1825. Cardisoma Latreille. Encycl. Méth., t. 10, p. 685. 



1870. Cai-diosoma S. J. Smith. Transact. Connecticut Ac, v. 2 p. 142. 



1886. Cardiosoma Miers. Rep. "Challenger", Brachyura, p. 219. 



This well-known genus is distinguished by the following characters: the carapace is (at 

 least in old specimens) very much inliated, with branchial regions strongly bulging and the 

 lateral margins only distinct in their anterior half; the distance between the external orbital 

 angles is more than half the greatest width of the carapace (as in Epigrapsus), but the 

 antennulae are separated by a broad septum, the peduncle of the antenna does not touch the 

 front, the epistome is very short, almost linear, the orbit is defined ventrally and laterally by 

 a finely-crenulated edge and there is no infra-orbital crest beneath it, the cornea of the eye 

 is very large, occupying nearly the whole ventral part of the eye-stalks (as in Ocypoda), 

 the merus of the external maxillipeds is as long as the ischium, much narrowed at its base, 

 and the exogmath bears a distinct flagellum. 



1) This is the specimen here tigured. 



136 



