268 S. I. Smith — Tropical and Sub-tropical 



The only specimen I have seen from the New England coast is a 

 small one taken alive, in 1877, by Mr. J. M. Blake, in Provincetown 

 Harbor, Cape Cod Bay, from a whaler just in from sea. This speci- 

 men differs so much from the adult G. pictus of Florida and the 

 West Indies that it might readily be taken for a different species. 

 The carapax is very much narrower proportionally than in adults, 

 and the branchial regions are less swollen. The front and epistome 

 are more like G. strigosus than the adult pictus : the front is not 

 perpendicular as in the adult but very oblique, the median and 

 lateral protogastric lobes being much less angular in front and much 

 back of the frontal margin itself; the relative proportions of these 

 lobes, however, and the other characters of the areolation of the 

 carapax agree well with adult specimens. A series of young speci- 

 mens of G. 2^ictns from the coast of Brazil shows, by direct grada- 

 tions in the form of the front and the relative proportions of the 

 carapax, that the small specimen from Provincetown is an immature 

 individual of this abundant tropical species, Avbich, as far as I know, 

 has not before been recorded from the western side of the Atlantic 

 north of Florida and the Barmudas. 



In the adult condition this species appears to vary slightly in the 

 height of the front and the character of the I'rontal lobes, and con- 

 siderably in coloration, but I can see no reason for regarding the 

 form, from Chili, named ornatus by Milne-Edwards, or that, from the 

 Gulf of California, called altifrons by Stimpson, as distinct species, 

 I have examined a considerable number of s])ecimens of the typical 

 pictus from Bermuda and from Key West, Florida, two large speci- 

 mens of the ornatus from Callao, Peru, and two large specimens of 

 the altifrons from La Paz, Lower California ; and I find no characters 

 whatever in the form of the carapax, or in the proportions or arma- 

 ment of the chilipeds or ambulatory legs, by which these supposed 

 species can be distinguished. In the coloration of these specimens 

 there is an apparent difference between those from the Atlantic and 

 those from the Pacific, but still not sufficient, I think, to distinguish 

 them even as geographical color varieties. All the specimens appear 

 to have the same pattern of coloration, but in those from the Gulf of 

 California and Peru the red very much predominates, while in 

 Atlantic specimens the yellow markings appear to occupy a larger 

 proportion of the surface. The Atlantic specimens vary much in this 

 respect, however, and the coloration of some of those from Bermuda 

 approaches very nearly that of the specimens from the west coast of 

 America, and I have no doubt that a large series of specimens from 



