8 



"has a tooth on the inner margin which appears to vary considerably in its expansion and 

 denticulation". 



Of the walking legs the first and fourth pair are slightly shorter than the middle pairs; 

 the meropodites are rather slender, their length being about three times the breadth and as 

 long as the carpo- and propodite together; there are no spines whatever on the legs, but -the 

 upper surface is somewhat granular; the whole posterior margin is fringed with long hairs that 

 are arranged in two longitudinal rows on the propodites and dactyli, and the superior row 

 passes from the carpopodite gradually to the upper surface of the propodite; the dactyli are 

 very long, straight, longer than the preceding joints and quite spineless along inner margins. 



The specimen that has been in alcohol for more than twenty years has conserved a dark- 

 yellow colour, finely mottled with dark spots, that are arranged in somewhat reticulated figures 

 on the legs; the under side of the carapace and also the long hairs are of a lighter colour. 



Dimensions in mm. : 



Total length of carapace (including rostrum) i6 



Total breadth of carapace 17 



Breadth of flattened part of carapace 13 



Length i 



Breadth at base ' 



of penultimate segment of abdomen of cf 



Length 1 [ .... 2 



I of last segment of abdomen of cf l 



Breadth at base ) | . . . . i 



Length of cheliped 17 



Horizontal length of palm 4 



Length of mobile finger '. 4 



Length of meropodite ] 1 ^ 



Breadth of meropodite 



Length of carpo- and 



Length of dactylus ] ( 8 



of penultimate pair of legs 

 Length of carpo- and propodite 1 i 10 



75 



5 

 5 

 5 



f 



:> 



25 



75 



5 

 5 



5 

 5 



5 



This species is quite characteristic of the South African littoral fauna, and has been 

 caught nearly nowhere else ^). Though apparently common in shallow waters near the shore it 

 has been also dredged from a depth of 80 metres near Cape Agulhas '). The hairiness of the 

 legs has induced some authors, rightly, I suppose, to ascribe a swimming faculty to the animal. 



2. Hymenosoma depressum Jacquinot et Lucas. 



The history of this species, that had been obscurely known, was traced ten years ago 

 by Chilton ^), who gave a renewed description, accompanied by figures. Unfortunately we are 

 not informed about the presence or absence of an epistome, nor about the shape of the external 

 maxiUipeds, but the hind margin of the walking legs is fringed with long hairs, and it is this 

 very character that induced Stebbing *) to assume, that the species was placed in the right genus. 



i) Lenz records a single specimen from Zanzibar. 



2) DOFLEIN, Wiss. Erg. "Valdivia", Bd 6, Brachyura, 1904, p. 88. 



3) Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (7) v. 19, 1907, p. 146 — 149. pi. 5. 



4) Transact. R. Soc. Edinburg, v. 50, prt 2, 1914, p. 270. 



8 



