APPEAEANCES DECEPTIVE 137 



Family 2. — HomoUdce. 



The carapace is quadrangular or subtriangular. The 

 eye-stalks are usually slender and very long, the orbits 

 very incomplete. The first antennae are not retractile into 

 special fossettes. The last pair of legs are small, pre- 

 hensile, subdorsal in position. 



The family may include five genera. The species ex- 

 tend to moderate depths. 



Dicraiiodromia, A. Milne-Edwards, 1880, is what is 

 called an inosculant genus. By the character of the last 

 two pairs of legs it should belong to the Dromidas, but the 

 defective orbits and the want of fossettes for the first 

 antennae place it among the Homolidse. 



Homola^ Leach, 1815, has the carapace quadrilateral, 

 of greater length than breadth. The eye-stalks have a 

 long slender basal pa!"t and a shorter dilated corneal por- 

 tion. The chelipeds are of moderate size, the three follow- 

 ing paii's of limbs are long and flattened, while the last 

 pair are short and subchelate. Homola barhata (Herbst) 

 and Homola Cuvieri, Risso, occur in the Mediterranean 

 and Atlantic. Homola orientalis^ Henderson, is a Pacific 

 species. 



Latreillia^ Roux, 1828, has a triangular carapace. The 

 eye-stalks are very long and slender, cylindrical, turned 

 forw^ards, and divergent. The legs are slender and cylin- 

 drical, the three middle pairs being very long. The four 

 species belonging to this genus are apportioned two to 

 Japan, one to Australia, and one, Latreillia elegaiis, Roux, 

 to the Mediterranean and Atlantic. The figures in Plate V. 

 represent the Japanese Latreillia valida of de Haan, from 

 whose work they are copied on a reduced scale. At the 

 first glance any one would be tempted to place the genus 

 among the spider-crabs in the tribe Oxyrrhyncha, but 

 de Haan showed the impropriety of this. ' The same struc- 

 ture,' he says, ' which prevails in Dromia and Homola is 

 found in the species of Latreillia. They agree in the organs 



