136 A HISTORY OF RECENT CRUSTACEA 
of Singapore, there were, he says, ‘two species with curved 
hooks on their hindmost claws, by means of which they 
hold on to a mangrove-leaf or a dead valve of a shell which 
conceals the animal from view; these leaves and dead 
valves may be seen apparently walking along on the shore.’ 
The species in question are supposed by Mr. A. O. Walker, 
in his account of the collection, to be Dorippe sima, Milne- 
Edwards, Dorippe astuta, Fabricius, and Concheecetes conchi- 
fera (Haswell). Bell says of numerous young specimens 
of Dromia vulgaris, which he had received from Sicily, 
that every one had the carapace entirely covered with a 
sponge, which concealed the two hinder pairs of legs, and 
rendered them immovable. In Cryptodromia lateralis 
(Gray), a species which ranges from Australia and New 
Zealand to the coasts of Japan, the animal is said to have 
almost invariably a sponge fixed on the carapace, covering 
it completely. Hypoconeha sabulosa (Herbst), besides 
protecting itself with the shell of a Lamellibranch mollusc, 
perhaps wears an inner vest of sand, for the museum speci- 
men which Herbst examined was, he says, more like a 
luntp of sand than a crab, and the carapace he found 
was extremely thin, delicate, and almost membranaceous. 
In this genus the sternal sulci of the female are widely 
separate, ‘each terminating in a tubercle opposite the 
basal joint of the second ambulatory leg.” The terminal 
joints of the last two pairs of legs are described as Y- 
shaped, but it must be remembered that the two arms of 
the Y are by no means equal. 
Petaloméra pulchra, Miers, @ Melanesian species of 
very small size, may be noticed as one member of this 
family which has obtained the epithet of beautiful, 
although in general figure it is not so very remote from 
the Dromia of which Herbst speaks so disrespectfully. 
Dynomene, Latreille, 1825, is distinguished from the 
rest of the family by having only the fifth pair of legs sub- 
dorsal in position. 
