56 Proceedlity.s of the Royal l^ocieti/ of Victoria. 



1853. Bell. History of the British Stalk-eyed Crustacea, 

 p. 76. 



1899. Alcock. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 



vol. Ixvii., pt. ii., p. 13. 



1900. Fulton and Grant. Victorian Naturalist, vol. 



xvii., p. 147. 



Dr. A. Alcock, in his valuable paper quoted above, in referring 

 to the distribution of the well-known European Shore Crab, states 

 that in addition to its usual habitat, it " has been reported from 

 the Hawaiian Islands, from the Bay of Panama, and though 

 there is doubt about this locality — from Australia." 



In a short paper read by us before the Victorian Field 

 Naturalists' Club in November, 1900, and before were were aware 

 of Dr. Alcock's reference, we had recorded its establishment in 

 the waters of Port Phillip. AVe cannot learn, however, of its 

 occurrence at any other points on the Australian Coast and there 

 seems little doubt that it has been introduced here in the 

 shipping. In confirmation of this we would point out that 

 although exceedingly abundant now, special reference is made to 

 its absence from our fauna in a paper by Dr. Kinnahan, published 

 by the Royal Dublin Society, vol. i., p. Ill, in 185G, entitled 

 " Remarks on the Habits and Distribution of Marine Crustacea, 

 on the Eastern shores of Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia, with 

 descriptions of undescribed Species and Genera." 



In the after discussion on our paper by the members, Consul 

 Gunnersen suggested that it found its way here from Eurojie 

 through the medium of the old lumber ships attracted to our 

 Port in the early 50's, on the discovery of the goldfields — many 

 of these vessels were far from seaworthy and had been patched 

 up with false bottoms which had become riddled with Teredo 

 navalis and were fouled with marine growths, affording ample 

 shelter for the fry and young crabs on their long voyage, which 

 would leave the ship on her coming to anchor. This theory 

 might also account for the scattered distribution of this species 

 as indicated by Dr. Alcock. 



The Rev. T. R. Stebbing in his " History of the Crustacea," in 

 the International Scientific Series, p. 98, refers to an analagous 

 case of the introduction of species of " Plagusia," to the Medi- 

 terranean on the bottom of an iron vessel from Pondicherry, via 

 the Cape of Good Hope, in 1873. 



