53 

 Scyramathia Bivers-Andersoni, Alcock. 



ScyramalUa Rivers-Aniersoni, Alcook, J. A. S. B., Vol. LXIT. pt. 2, 1895, p. 203 : 111. Zool.ilnvestigator, 

 Crust, pi. xxii. figs. 2, 4, 4a. 



Carapace closely covered mtli peg-shaped hairs with long set^ interspersed : 

 legs with few setse. The carapace, which is piriform and somewhat inflated, 

 has, besides a supra-ocular tooth and a sharp post-ocular process, and besides 

 a sahent hepatic spine, and a still more salient lateral epibranchial spine (about 

 two-fifths the greatest breadth of the carapace in length), six sharply conical 

 tubercles evenly and equidistantly arranged in a circle round a central cardiac 

 tubercle : of these the most posterior overhangs the middle of the posterior 

 border, while the most anterior, which is situated far back on the gastric region, 

 is flanked on either side by a very faint eminence. 



The rostrum consists of two slender divergent horns, the length of which 

 in the male is about three-quarters, in the female about two-thirds, that of the 

 rest of the carapace. 



The eyes are small and pale, and though freely movable forwards are not 

 retractile backwards further than to impinge against the summit of the post- 

 ocular process of the carapace. The basal antennal joint, which is of no great 

 width, is sharply truncated : the mobile portion of the antenna is freely exposed 

 on either side of the rostrum. 



The chelipeds in the fully adult male (but not in the young male) are much 

 stouter than the legs, and are as long as the carapace and rostrum ; the arm is 

 prismatic with knife-like edges, the upper edge ending in a spine ; the wrist is 

 bicarinate, the outer carina being very prominent ; the hands, which form nearly 

 half their total length, have the palm carinate along the upper edge, and the 

 fingers shghtly separated when closed. 



In the female the chelipeds are not stouter than the legs, are not much longer 

 than the carapace proper, and have the fingers closely apposable throughout. 



Of the ambulatory legs the first are much the longest, being nearly half 

 again as long as the carapace and rostrum ; while the last two pairs are very 

 short and have their dactyli reduced in length, increased in strength, and 

 strongly recurved. 



Length of carapace and rostrum 



Male. Female. 



21 millim. 16-5 mi 



9 „ 7 



21 „ 11 



31 „ 20 



15 „ 11 



ihm. 



„ rostrum 



„ chelipeds 



„ 2nd pair of trunk-legs 



5th 



Off Malabar coast, 406 and 430 fms. 



The next two species more resemble the Pugettia velutina, Miers (Challenger 

 Brachyura, p. 41, pi. vi. fig. 2). 

 8 



