544 TranmciionH. 



Art. XLIX. — The Crustacea 0/ the Kermadec Islands. 



By Charles Chilton, M.A., M.B., D.Sc, F.L.S., Professor of Biology, 

 Canterbury College, University of New Zealand. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterhury, 7th December, 1910.] 



The Crustacea described in this paper are mainly the result of collections 

 made by Mr. W. E. B. Oliver and his companions during their stay on the 

 Kermadec Islands in 1908, but included among them are several that had 

 previously been collected at the islands by Captain Bollons, of the Govern- 

 ment steamer " Hinemoa," and by him kindly handed over to me. 



Mr. Oliver has very generously intrusted his whole collection to me for 

 identification, and has supplied me with a number of notes on the occur- 

 rence, habits, &c., of many of the species, most of which are incorporated 

 below. The collection proves to be a very representative one of the crus- 

 tacean fauna of the islands, including marine and shore forms, and also 

 the few land and fresh-water species that were to be obtained. 



Altogether it comprises 83 species, grouped as follows : Decapoda, 47 ; 

 Euphausiacea, 1 ; Aniphipoda, 14 ; Isopoda, 10 ; Cirripedia, 4 ; Ostracoda, 2 ; 

 Branchiopoda, 1 ; Copepoda, 4. It will be seen that although the majority 

 of the species belong to the Decapoda, as comparatively little attention 

 could be devoted to the smaller forms, still nearly all the other divisions 

 of the Crustacea are represented. The identification of all the forms of 

 the different groups has been a somewhat difficult task in the absence of 

 any large collection of named specimens for comparison and of some of 

 the necessary works of reference. I have endeavoured in all cases to 

 indicate the description on which I have rehed for the identification, 

 and, when necessary, to state briefly the points in which my specimens 

 appeared to differ. 



A few Crustacea were obtained by the " Challenger " Expedition by 

 means of dredgings in the neighbourhood of the Kermadecs, but so far as 

 I am aware no previous collection has been made actually at the Kermadec 

 Islands themselves, and it is therefore perhaps a little surprising that 

 nearly all the specimens prove to belong to species already known. A few 

 new species are described, but the proportion of these is very small con- 

 sidering that the collection comes from a,n absolutely new locality, and 

 even some of these new species must be looked upon as confessions of 

 ignorance. However gratifying it may be to describe new and peculiar 

 forms, it is still more pleasing to find how completely the more conspicuous 

 members of the crustacean fauna of the seas surrounding the Kermadecs 

 are now known. This prepares the way for attacking questions of dis- 

 tribution. In this paper, however, I cannot enter fully into this matter, 

 and can merely state that nearly all the marine and littoral species are Aus- 

 tralian or Indo-Pacific forms, many of them being already known from the 

 east coast of Australia, New Caledonia, Lord Howe Island, or Norfolk Island, 

 though several are now recorded from this region for the first time. Com- 

 paratively few of the marine forms extend to New Zealand. The aflinities 



