﻿SoiitJi African Crustacea. 61 



The total length of the specimen was about 33 mm., the 

 carapace 13 mm. including the rostrum, the telson 4'5 mm. 

 The plate illustrating this species is reserved for future 

 publication. 



Locality. Cape Natal, N. by E., 24 miles; depth 440 

 fathoms. A 1550. 



Tribe SCYLLAEIDEA. 



This tribe, established as the " Tribu des Scyllariens by Milne- 

 Edwards in 1837, has been already noticed in these Annals, vol. 6, 

 part 1, p. 28, 1908, and vol. 6, part 4, p. 372, 1910. 



Family SCYLLAEIDAE. 



With the above-mentioned notices of the tribe will be found many 

 references to the literature of the family. As might have been 

 expected, the singular bodily shape and the spade-like second 

 antennae of the "Mother-lobsters" have excited attention in very 

 early times. Linnaeus, however, in 1758 was content to group all 

 the forms then known as a single species, Cancer arctus. To deter- 

 mine which of them, according to modern rules, has a right to the 

 specific name arctus requires some consideration. 



In the Fauna Suecica, ed. 2, p. 496, No. 2040, 1761, Linnaeus 

 again named Cancer arctus, but this time with a single reference, 

 " Eumph. mus. t. 2. f. C. D." These figures illustrate what were 

 supposed to be the two sexes of Ursa-Cancer, Eumphius, as described 

 in his D'Amboinsche Eariteitkamer, Book 1, p. 3, 1705. Fig. C is 

 now referred to Parrihacus, Dana, and Fig. D to Themis, Leach. 

 By strict rule perhaps, therefore, arctus should be a species of one 

 or the other of those two genera, but as the habitat is restricted to 

 Oceano scptentrionali , it is possible that Linnaeus was referring to 

 yet a third species, an indefiniteness and confusion which may 

 justify us in leaving the "Fauna Suecica" out of account. We 

 next come to Cancer arctus in the Systema Naturae, ed. 12, vol. 1, 

 part 2, p. 1053, 1767. Here we have the old distribution over the 

 four quarters of the globe and contradictory references to the two 

 figures in Eumphius and the single figure in Browne's Jamaica 

 and the very different one in Seba's Thesaurus, but the reference 

 to the "Fauna Suecica" is also given, and contrary to custom a 

 comparatively full description is appended, as if drawn up from an 



