IGO Iiathbuii — JRevision of Nomenclature of tlic Brachyura. 



the present day, and (brms the typical genus of the Maiinse, 

 Maiidfe, and Maioidea. 8houkl Phalangipus be ruled out, Maja 

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

 17B0, for a genus of birds, accepted l)y many ornithologists. 



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

 tions Generales sur I'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 I'indication de I'esj^ece 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 Astacusjiuviatilis may have been the species 

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

 Portmms p)elagicus or Dromia rumphii, East Indian species, chosen 

 in preference to European. It has also been claimed thai 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 /orm'caia the tyjDe of Parthenope 

 instead of Cryptopodia, vigil the type of Portunus instead of 

 Podophtalinus., scahriuscula the type of Leiocosia instead of Pkilyra, 

 while rauricatus would be an laachus instead of a Doclea. 



The present adoption of Latreille's specification aflects the 

 type of only two genera among the Brachyura, Portunus and 

 Leucosia Fabricius, 1798. The type of the former becomes pe/a- 

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

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

 Leucosia of Leach ma}^ 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 



