﻿South African Crustacea. 45 



In using the above specific name for the present collection 

 I must confess that it is only adopted after long deliberation 

 as a counsel of despair. Some of the specimens have a length 

 of 7 inches, retaining as preserved and while shielded from 

 light a deep red colour. A specimen from No. 7 in the list of 

 stations given above has the following dimensions : total 

 length 175 mm., of which the carapace with rostrum accounts 

 for 75 mm. and the telson for 21-9 mm. The rostrum from 

 the base of the orbit is nearly 41 mm. long ; the dorsal teeth 

 are 30 in number, 7 of them behind the base of the orbit, the 

 foremost 8 widely spaced, ventral teeth 3, widely spaced, the 

 ventral margin as usual setulose. The sixth pleon segment is 

 of the same length as the telson, the fifth peraeopod 109 mm. 

 long. The finger of this limb is much shorter than that of the 

 fourth pair, but broader at the base, triangular with a setule 

 at the tip, surrounded as in the preceding pair by long setae 

 finely fringed, some of them more conspicuously armed near 

 the base. Neither in this nor in any other specimen is the 

 third pleon segment dorsally extended into an acute point. 



Only two specimens in the collection are carrying ova, each 

 being an example of very large size, with very long rostrum, 

 the length of it conjectural in one case but easily inferred 

 from companion specimens. In each instance the eggs are 

 abundant, not round but decidedly oval, yet curiously difi"ering 

 in size and other respects. Those of the larger pattern are from 

 the smaller depth of 460 fathoms, the smaller from the depth 

 of 600 fathoms (No. 4 in the list). It is interesting to compare 

 these forms with that which Mr. Stanley Kemp has figured 

 and described in 1910 (Fisheries, Ireland, p. 79, pi. 9, figs. 9, 

 10), extracted from an egg of " Nematocarcinus e7isifer, var. 

 exilis, Spence Bate." Mr. Kemp says: " The chief features of 

 this larva are the long, sharp, downwardly curved rostrum and 

 an obtuse angle in the posterior third of the third abdominal 

 somite. The telson (Pig. 10) is apically emarginate and bears 

 seven pairs of plumose setae. The mandibles, maxillae, and 

 maxillipedes are present, but no pleopods or pereiopods are 

 developed." Presumably my figures show an earlier stage of 

 development, as there is a nauplian eye, no rostrum, but on 

 the other hand there appears a small plate tipped with a seta 

 and indicative of the coming uropods (the Figs. A, B, C are 

 from station No. 179, D, E from No. 180. The telson, Fig. C, 

 is more highly magnified than the telson. Fig. E). 



