Zoology. - ] NATURAL HISTORY OF VICTORIA. [Crustacea. 



As I have always referred our species to the P. Lalandi, and 

 believed it to be identical with the New Zealand and Tasmanian, 

 as well as the South African one, I felt obliged to investigate 

 those supposed differences carefully. On going to the British 

 Museum I found, after some difficulty, the specimens (one presented 

 by Dr. Andrew Smith, from the Cape of Good Hope, and the New 

 Zealand one from Mr. Percy Earl's collection) referred by Gray 

 to P. Lalandi (now re-labelled P. Edwardsi) and found the NeAv 

 Zealand and the Cape specimens belonged clearly to one species, 

 and, as I had many years ago published the belief, identical also 

 with the Victorian species. I here also found a specimen sent to 

 the Indian and Colonial Exhibition from the New Zealand Govern- 

 ment as P. Edwardsi, about twice the size mentioned bv Prof. 

 Hutton, and agreeing in this respect with our ordinary examples 

 and the size (15 in.) published by Milne Edwards for the original 

 types of P. Lalandi from the Cape ; so that difference of size does 

 not hold even in New Zealand. The second characteristic of 

 P. Edwardsi — having the rostrum curved upwards, instead of 

 straight, as said by Capt. Hutton of P. Lalandi — gave me much 

 trouble, as the shape of the rostrum is not mentioned by Milne 

 Edwards in his work for Lamarck's species, and so I thought it 

 necessary to go to Paris to examine the original type in the 

 Jardin des Plantes Museum, and having, with the kind assistance 

 of Dr. Fisher, found the original specimen, I ascertained that the 

 rostrum curved gently upwards in the S. African type. 



I figure now our most common upward-curved rostrum (Plate 

 149, fig. lb), and the much rarer, perfectly straight, horizontal 

 rostrum (Plate 150, fig. 2), between which the original Cape type 

 specimens in the Paris Museum, as well as by far the greater 

 number of our Victorian ones, are intermediate. One of our 

 Victorian female specimens has the rostrum straight, but directed 

 almost vertically upwards (Plate 150, fig. 1). The females of 

 P. Edwardsi are said by Capt. Hutton to have no rostrum ; in our 

 specimens (except occasional absences from malformation in both 

 sexes) the female has the rostrum as in the male, but rather 

 smaller, as is true generally of all spines. As to the existence of 

 a small, anterior, second spine at the distal extremity of the third 



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