90 ALLAN HANCOCK PACIFIC EXPEDITIONS VOL. 21 



Habitat: Rocky bottom covered with weeds. (Lockington) "The 

 hydroids on the Balboa [California] piles were swarming with these 

 peculiar spider-like crabs." (Nininger) Wharf piling; protected piles. 

 (Ricketts and Calvin) Soft mud with shell to firm sand, with or with- 

 out weed. (Crane) Often abundant on the piling in harbors, as at San 

 Pedro, where it may be seen crawling slowly about among the tunicates 

 (Ciona) and the seaweeds growing on the wharf piles and floats. Covers 

 body with foreign growth. (Johnson and Snook) In the 71 stations of the 

 present study for which data on bottom type are available, the primary 

 breakdown is sand 55 per cent, mud 27 per cent, rock 17 per cent, and 

 coralline one per cent. Of the sand bottom stations nearly one third 

 were with shell, while of the mud bottoms fully one-half were with 

 sand or sandy mud. 



Depth: In the Gulf of California from shore to 35 fathoms, off 

 southern California from shore to 225 fathoms, the latter nearly four 

 times the maximum depth of 66 fathoms given by Rathbun (1925). 

 Intertidal collections were at extreme low tide at the entrances to 

 Mission Bay, San Diego County, and Newport Bay, Orange County, 

 California. 



Breeding: Egg-bearing females were encountered off southern Cali- 

 fornia in every month from February to November, with but a slight 

 increase in frequency during the summer months. In the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia, with collections from January to April, the preponderance of 

 ovigerous females was in March. No gravid females were encountered 

 by Hancock expeditions south of Mexico, although Boone (1930a, p. 

 76) reports (as Collodes granosus) egg-bearing females from Costa 

 Rica in February. 



Size and sex: The largest specimen on record is the 21.7 mm male 

 reported by Rathbun (1925). 



Remarks: With the additional evidence provided by the male first 

 pleopod (Plate E, fig. 7), it is difficult to resist the temptation to return 

 this species to Inachoides, where it was once placed by both Schmitt 

 (1921) and Rathbun (1923b). However, certain considerations restrain 

 the writer from so doing, at least for the present. Among these may be 

 mentioned the important general characters which relate the species to 

 Pyromaia as exemplified by its type species, P. cuspidate Stimpson: the 

 large postorbital spine which curves around the eye and the remarkably 

 long walking legs which exceed the cheliped in length, together with 

 their attenuated and almost smooth dactyls. To be sure, these are char- 

 acters which appear in the adult and not in the young, as noted by 



