MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 927 



It is to be hoped that -the commonsense of entomologists as a body will 

 some day make itself felt and that the present incubus imposed by system- 

 atists may be removed. 



The difficulties of identifying species are great and daily growing greater, 

 but they are a trifle compared to the ever-increasing difficulty of choosing 

 between and identifying synonyms in literature. 



An account of the revised classification will appear shortly and any one 

 wishing for a printed list of the families in order, can receive it on application 

 to the Hon. Secy., Bombay Nat. Hist. Society. 



Sept. 1908. H. M. L. 



No. XXXI.— THE BOMBAY ' SPINY LOBSTER." 



As Captain Powell's valuable account of the Bombay spiny lobster in a recent 

 number of your Journal (Vol. XVIII, No. 2, p. 360) suffers from the fact that 

 the species he describes has not been identified, the following notes may be 

 of interest to your readers although they contain no new information : — 



The Rev. T. R. II. Stebbing says in his " History of the Crustacea " ( London, 

 1893), " PaHnurus, Fabricius, 1797, is restricted by Spence Bate to those species 

 which have a small central rostriform tooth or tubercle that overhangs but 

 does not cover or enclose the ocular segment, which have short flagella to the 

 first antennal, and in which the segment that carries those antennal is ante 

 riorly produced and laterally compressed in front. Such species appear to be 

 confined to the northern hemisphere " (p. 195). " Panulirus, White, 1847, con- 

 tains the numerous Eastern and one or two Western species, in which there is 

 no central rostriform tooth, which have the ocular segment exposed and mem- 

 branous, the flagella of the first antennal long and slender, and their segment 

 produced considerably in advance of the frontal margin, that being generally 

 armed with strong teeth" (p. 197). The most abundant species of Panulirus in 

 Indian seas is P. fasciatus, Fabricius, which is probably that with which Captain 

 Powell deals; but others occur, notably the deep-sea form P. angidatus, Spence 

 Bate, which is not uncommon at depths of from 143 to 710 fathoms in the 

 Arabian Sea. The Palinuridse is one of the families of Decapod Crustacea 

 which have not yet been properly investigated so far as the seas of India are 

 concerned ; and probably there are species in our fauna as yet undescnbed; but 

 it is hoped that Colonel Alcock may deal with them in a future volume of his 

 " Catalogue of the Indian Decapod Crustacea," in the first part of which 

 (Brachyura, 1901) an account of the anatomy of a typical Indian form (namely 

 Nephrops andanwnica) will be found. 



N. ANNANDALE, Superintendent, 



Calcutta, \?>th August 1908. Indian Museum (Natural History Section). 



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