396 



Transactions. 



In the light of our knowledge of the structure of the worm it would 

 be surprising to fond such " chitinous setae " springing haphazard from 

 the skin. At that date (1885) Sternaspis was included among the Gephyrea, 

 and in the Sipunculids there are tufts of " chitinous setae " scattered over 

 the skin : it would not be anything unusual for them to occur. But we 

 now recognize that Sternaspis is a Chaetopod, and their occurrence can 

 scarcely be accepted from a mere inspection, as one may gather was the 

 case with this worm. 



Weighing all the facts, I think it would not be unreasonable to suggest 

 that S. princeps is nothing but a large specimen of S. scutata. 



It may be useful to summarize in the following tabular form the facts 

 recorded in this paper (measurements in millimetres) : — 



Specimen. 



Size. 



Shield. 



Anterior 

 Chiaetea. 



Shield Chaetae. 



Colour of Shield. 



Akaroa 



AJdtio 



Naples 



8. princeps 



4 X 2-25 



5-5 X 3-25 



4 X 2-5 to 

 7 X 3-25 



9-10 



11 

 9-11 



15-17 pairs 

 15-16 pairs 

 17-19 pairs 



20 pairs 



Brick-red. 

 J Dark brown. 

 \ Purple-brown. 

 Pale brown to 

 dark brown. 



Art. XXXIX. — Notes on the Marine Crayfish of New Zealand. 



By G-ILBERT Archey, M.A., Assistant Curator, Canterbury Museum. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 3rd November, 1915.] 



Plate XXXIX. 



These notes are intended to bring together the various scattered references 

 to the marine crayfishes of New Zealand, and thus to have definitely recorded 

 in the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute " the correct names and 

 complete descriptions of these forms. Descriptions of the larval stages, 

 so far as they are at present known, have also been included. 



There are only two species of New Zealand marine crayfish, both belong- 

 ing to the same genus. They were first assigned to the genus Palinurus, 

 to which the English crayfish belongs, but T. Jeffrey Parker (1883, p. 190) 

 pointed out that the genus, as then understood, could be divided into 

 three subgenera, Avhich he named Jasus, Palinurus, and Panulirus, the 

 New Zealand species belonging to the first-named, which was distinguished 

 chiefly by the absence of the stridulating organ. The full text of Parker's 

 paper was published in the following year (Parker, 1884, p. 304). Parker 

 subsequently claimed priority for the name Jasus as a generic name over 

 Palinosytus, described by Spence Bate (1888, p. 85), and quoted by 

 Stebbing (1893, p. 197), and so the generic name Jasus now stands for 

 the New Zealand crayfishes. 



Of the two species of Jasus known from New Zealand, the first is the 

 common crayfish Jasus lalandii (M.-Edw.) sold in the shops, and the other, 

 J. hiigelii (HeUer), is the Sydney crayfish, which is only met with occasionally 

 in New Zealand seas, and then only on the northern coasts. 



