Pabker. — Remarks on Palinurus. 151 



peculiar to New Zealand. In his account of the latter form, 

 Miers remarks : " The specimens from New Zealand, in the 

 collection of the British Museum, that have been referred to 

 P. Icdandii, belong to this species [F. edwardsii] ; and hence I 

 am in doubt whether P. lalandii be also an inhabitant of the 

 New Zealand seas. It was formerly considered a common New 

 Zealand species." 



This remark, and the fact that I constantly found myself 

 unable to distinguish the supposed two species from one another 

 by the diagnostic characters given by Hutton and by Miers, 

 induced me to make a special study of the question, and to this 

 end I have obtained a series of specimens of the undoubted 

 P. lalandii from the Cape of Good Hope. For these, I have 

 to thank Mr. E. Trimen, F.L.S., Curator of the South African 

 Museum, Cape Town, who kindly sent me more than a dozen 

 examples belonging to both sexes, and of very various sizes. 

 "With these I have carefully compared about an equal number 

 of Palinuri from the Dunedin market, as well as Button's type 

 specimens in the Otago University Museum, of which one is 

 labelled P. lalandii, and two P. edwardsii. 



The diagnostic characters of P. edwardsii relied on by Hutton 

 are best given in his own words : " This species differs from 

 P. lalandii in its much smaller size, in the shape of the beak, in 

 having no spine on the penultimate joint of the anterior legs, 

 and in having a small spine at the distal extremity of the third 

 joint of the last four pairs of legs." * 



a. Size. — In this respect there is a perfect gradation between 

 the largest and the smallest crayfishes brought to the Dunedin 

 market. 



b. Characters of the rostrum. — The rostrum of P. lalandii is 

 thus described by Miers : " Eostrum with the lateral spines 

 smooth above and below, and not projecting nearly so far as the 

 small median spine, below the base of which are two small 

 spines." That of P. edwardsii is described in the same words, 

 both by Miers and by Hutton : " Beak small, compressed, 

 curved upwards, and with two small spines at its base." From 

 this it would appear that it is the compression and the upward 

 curvature of the rostrum of P. edwardsii which distinguishes 

 it from that of P. lalandii, since the two small basal spines are 

 common to both species. 



As I have elsewhere pointed out,f the above description of 

 the rostrum is wanting in exactness. The two small spines_ at 

 its base have nothing to do with the rostrum proper, being 

 given off from what I have called the "clasping processes" (figs. 

 7-11, cl.p^), pedate structures arising from the prsestomial plate, 



* '• Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. vii. (1874), p. 279. 

 t "Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. xvi. (1888), p. 298. 



