234 Bulletin Vanderbilt Marine Museum, Vol. VII 



Cancer plebeius, Dana, J. D., in Wilkes, Chas., U. S. Explor. 

 Exped., Zool., 1852, vol. XIII, pt. I, p. 155. — Milne Edwards, 

 A., Nouv. Archiv. Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris, 1866, t. I, p. 188. 



Cancer edwardsii Bell 

 y 



Plates 90, 91 and 92 



Type: Mr. Bell's type specimens, which apparently are no 

 longer extant, were collected near Valparaiso, Chile. 



Distribution: This species inhabits the littoral zone of the 

 west coast of South America, from southernmost Chile north- 

 ward to Guayaquil, Ecuador. It has been reliably reported from 

 Valparaiso (Bell) ; coast of Chile (Edwards) ; Talcahuano and 

 Trinidad Channel (Miers) ; Talcahuano and Lota, Chile (Rath- 

 bun) ; Callao, Peru, (Kinahan) ; Guayaquil, Ecuador (Rathbun). 

 The "Alva" catch adds two new records to the southern Chilean 

 distribution of this crab. 



Material examined: Two large females, dredged in 8 fath- 

 oms, in Bahia Ancud, Chiloe Islands, Chiloe Archipelago, Chile, 

 February 9, 1935. A large male and female, in 9 fathoms. Port 

 Lagunas, Chile, February 13, 1935, by the "Alva." 



Colour: Not recorded from the living crab. 



Technical description : The carapace is a wide oval, very 

 convex in both directions, except the rim-like margin. The nar- 

 row inter-orbital margin is not produced, being cut into three 

 teeth in addition to the preorbital angles. The median tooth is 

 the smallest, conical, scarcely or not at all advanced beyond the 

 slightly larger, submedian, conical pair, which are separated bj'" 

 U-shaped sulci from the nearly subequal, blunt, preorbital teeth. 

 The anterolateral margin is obscurely divided by closed fissures 

 into nine teeth, each of these teeth being marginally crenulate or 

 dentate, having variously two, three or even four indentations, 

 some of which are bluntly conic, others truncate, faintly sinuate. 

 The postorbital tooth is usually blunt, truncate. There is one 

 strong postlateral tooth, which is usually weakly indented pos- 

 teriorly. Behind this the postlateral margins form strong, sinuate 

 carinae which terminate a little in advance of the wider, sinuate, 

 flatly carinate posterior margin. The cardiac and anterior intes- 



