192 A HISTORY OF RECENT CRUSTACEA 
short, squamiform. The mandibles have a one-jointed 
‘palp. The trunk-legs are simple, except the fifth pair 
in the female, which are minutely chelate. 
To this family there are assigned six or seven genera, 
one of which is occasionally met with in the waters of 
Great Britain. In this and other families in which the 
fifth pair of legs are chelate in the females only, they are 
supposed to be so constructed to assist in rupturing the 
ovisac, and liberating the embryo from the ovum. Bell 
explains the unusual structure of the second antenne by 
suggesting that they have been developed into bread flat 
organs of natation, and probably also constitute a pair 
of shovels for the purpose of burrowing. 
Scyllérus, Fabricius, 1793, has been much subdivided 
since its first Institution. As re-defined by Dana, it has 
the rostrum very salient, the sides of the carapace not 
incised, the second antennz almost contiguous, the exopod 
of the third maxillipeds ending in a lash; the pairs of 
branchiz twenty-one. 
In various writers the expression will be found in such 
definitions as the above, that the palp of the third maxil- 
lipeds is or is not furnished with a flagellum. Now Pro- 
fessor Huxley in ‘The Crayfish’ says that, in the terms 
usually applied to the maxillipeds by writers on descriptive 
zoology, ‘the exopodite is the palp, and the metamor- 
phosed podobranchia, the real nature of which is not 
recognised, is termed the flagellum.’ It must therefore 
be borne in mind that the flagellum mentioned by Huxley 
as an equivalent to the podobranchia or epipod on the first 
joint is quite distinct from the flagellum of the exopod, 
the term being used in the latter instance merely to signify 
a whip-like termination, a many-jointed, more or less flexi- 
ble lash. 
Scyllarus latus (Rondelet), Latreille, is found in the 
Mediterranean and Atlantic. It is said sometimes to 
attain a length of a foot and a half, and to be delicious 
food, superior to the lobster itself. Patrick Browne in his 
‘History of Jamaica,’ calls it ‘The Mother Lobster,’ and 
Petiver designates it, ‘the great broad warty crab.’ In 
