160 Rathbun Revision of Nomenclature of the Brachywa. 



the present day, and forms the typical genus of the Maiinso, 

 Maiidse, and Maioidea. Should Phalangipus be ruled out, Maja 

 also must fall. It is of interest that Main was used by Brisson, 

 1760, for a genus of birds, accepted by many ornithologists. 



4. Specification of type. In 1810, Latreille. in his ' Considera 

 tions Generales sur 1'ordre naturel des animaux composant les 

 classes des Crustaces, des Arachnides, et des Insectes,' gives a 

 supplementary list with the following heading, ' Table des Genres 

 avec 1'indication de 1'espece qui leur sert de type.' At the time 

 of the publication of Dr. Herrick's monograph, 'The American 

 Lobster,' I believed that the species designated by Latreille 

 should be regarded as types of their genera, and I am not yet 

 persuaded to reverse that decision. It has been argued '' that 

 ' Astacus fluviatilis Fab.' is given not as the type, but merely as a 

 type, an example, a specimen of the genus, the handiest one for 

 a Parisian reader to recognize." The French word ' type,' how 

 ever, is defined as ' type ' or ' standard,' not as ' example ' or ' illus 

 tration,' and although Astacus fluviatilis may have been the species 

 most familiar to the Parisian reader, the same cannot be said of 

 Portunus pelagicus or Dromia rumphii, East Indian species, chosen 

 in preference to European. It has also been claimed that fluvia 

 tilis is the type of Astacus because it was placed first among those 

 enumerated by Fabricius ; but if this rule were applied to other 

 Fabrician genera, we should have fornicata the type of Parthenope 

 instead of Cryptopodia, vigil the type of Portunus instead of 

 Podophtalmus, scabriuscula the type of Leucosia instead of Philyra, 

 while muricatus would be an Liachus instead of a Doclea. 



The present adoption of Latreille's specification affects the 

 type of only two genera among the Brachyura, Portunus and 

 Leucosia Fabricius, 1798. The type of the former becomes pela- 

 gicus, commonly attributed to Neptunus, de Haan, 1833, and of 

 the latter, nucleus, afterward made the type of Ilia by Leach, 1817. 

 Leucosia of Leach may be known as Leucosides, nov. Latreille 

 in 1810 makes the species pagurus the type of Cancer. In 1825, 

 in his ' Families Naturelles,' he forms presumably for this species 

 the genus Tourteau, in Gallic form, = Pagurus in Berthold's 

 translation, 1827. This circumstance might be a weighty argu 

 ment against the recognition of the Latreillian species as types, 

 were it not that Leach in the mean time had indisputably re 

 stricted the genus Cancer to C. pagurus, and that in the early 



