THE BRANCHIAE OF PENiEUS. 



267 



As these formulae show, those trichobrancliiate Crus- 

 tacea, which possess fewer than twenty-one complete 

 brancliise on each side, commonly present traces of the 

 missing ones, either in the shape of epipodites, as in the 

 case of the podobranchi?e, or of minute rudiments, in the 

 case of the arthrobranchise and the pleurobranchise. 



In the marine, prawn-like, genus Penceus (fig. 73, 

 Chap. YI.), the gills are curiously modified trichobran- 

 chise. The number of functional branchiae is, as in the 

 lobster, twenty ; but the study of their disposition shows 

 that the total is made up in a very different way. 



The branchial formula of Penceus, 



+ 6 ep. + 7 



= 20 + 6 ep. 



This case is very interesting; for it shows that the 

 whole of the podobranchise may lose theii* branchial charac- 

 ter, and be reduced to ei)ipodites, as is the case with the 

 first in the crayfish and lobster, and indeed in most of 

 the forms under consideration. And since all but one of 

 the somites bear both arthrobranchite and pleurobranchise, 



