OF NEW ZEALAND. 25 
characterized has a most extended geographical range, being found on 
the Atlantic Coasts of the United States, at Brazil, and the Falkland 
Islands; and there is even a specimen (female) from Ceylon in the 
British Museum Collection. It is probable that when the specimens 
from these different localities are carefully compared, specific differences 
will be found to exist. Lieutenant Ordway, in a monograph of the 
American species of the genus Callinectes, closely allied to Neptunus, 
in the Boston Journal of Natural History, vii, 1859-63, has pointed 
out modifications of the form of the male abdomen and intro-mittent 
appendages, in the different species, which had not previously been 
observed. 
26. Neptunus pelagicus.* 
Cancer pelagicus, Linn. Syst. Nat. (ed. xii) p. 1042, (1766). 
Lupa pelagica, M. Edw. Hist. Nat. Crust. i, p. 450, (1834). 
Neptunus pelagicus, A. M. Edw. (part) Archiv. Mus. Hist. Nat. x, 
p- 320, (1861); Miers, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (ser. 4) xvii, p. 221, 
(1876). 
Carapace wide, with very coarse granulations, without tubercles 
upon the gastric and cardiac regions. Teeth of the lateral margins 
short, wide at the base, ninth epibranchial spine long, acute. Front 
six toothed, the median teeth smaller, but never obsolete. Orbits 
divided above into three lobes, by two deep fissures, the middle lobe 
with a small spine at its external angle. Anterior legs very long and 
slender. Anterior margin of the arm with three, four, or even five 
spines, there is also a single spine at the extremity of the posterior 
margin. Wrist with an acute spine upon its inner, and a similar smaller 
spine upon its outer surface. Hand usually very long and slender, with 
three spines, two placed above the base of the mobile finger, and one 

* Under the name of V. pelagicus two very distinct but nearly allied species 
appear to have been confounded. The second species, which I have designated 
N. trituberculatus, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., loc. cit. is more convex, less coarsely 
granulated, with the epibranchial lines less strongly marked than in JV. 
pelagicus. There are three low tubercles placed in a triangle in the central 
portion of the carapace, one anterior, upon the gastric, and two posterior 
upon the cardiac region. The front is four toothed, the median teeth being 
obsolete. The middle lobe of the upper orbital margin is commonly without 
a spiniform prominence. The arms are shorter and more robust than in 
N. pelagicus. The colour is of a dull pink or slate, with numerous regular 
spots of pale yellow upon the carapace and legs. 
This species inhabits the coasts of China and Japan, it has been figured by 
De Haan in the “ Fauna Japonica” pl. ix, x, as 4. pelagicus, and attains to 
quite as large a size as that species. 
