2 Memoirs of the Indian Museum. [Vor. IV, 
published, very considerable additions have been made, largely owing to the pains- 
‘taking efforts of succeeding Surgeon-Naturalists on the R.I.M.S.S. ‘Investigator.’ 
As may be imagined the task of writing an account of this collection, already 
to a large extent arranged and classified ‘by Wood-Mason, was one of no especial 
difficulty : the manuscript names with which many of the species were supplied have 
been a fruitful source of guidance. It was my original intention to restrict the 
present paper to an account of the Indian species, but it soon became apparent that 
the collection was sufficiently representative to justify work on more ambitious lines, 
and I have consequently attempted to give a descriptive catalogue of all adult 
Stomatopoda from Indo-pacific waters, indicating as far as a study of the literature 
enables me, the chief points of those species which I have not been able to examine 
myself. Owing perhaps to their peculiar habits many species of Stomatopoda are 
so rare that it is only by abstraction from the work of previous writers that a concise 
account of the forms occurring in a given area can be prepared. 
Under the somewhat loose term ‘‘ Indo-pacific ’’ I include all localities from Suez 
and §S. Africa to Australia, New Zealand, Oceania and Japan. ‘The Pacific Coast of 
America is omitted ; for the species of Stomatopoda known from this region show 
little affinity with those of the area defined above and have, moreover, already 
been fully dealt with by Bigelow. 
It is not necessary to treat the history of our knowledge of the recent Stomato- 
poda at any considerable length. H. Milne-Edwards in 1837 gave an account of the 
few species known in his day, and this was succeeded in 1849 by De Haan’s admirable 
chapter on the Japanese species in Siebold’s Fauna Japonica. After the latter work 
our knowledge did not increase very rapidly ; in 1880 Miers was able to comprise 
within the limits of two short papers descriptions of all the forms then known and up 
to the present day this revision has remained the principal work of reference to the 
Indo-pacific forms. Since 1880 a great number of papers dealing with Stomatopoda 
have appeared, scattered through numerous scientific periodicals, and among these 
important contributions to our knowledge of the Indo-pacific species are to be found 
in the writings of Brooks, de Man, Henderson, Nobili, Hansen, Miiller, Borradaile, 
Tattersall and Fukuda. 
Of publications not dealing directly with Indo-pacific species Bigelow’s valuable 
systematic account of the American forms (1894) and Giesbrecht’s very complete 
monograph of those found in the Mediterranean (1910) will be found indispensable 
to all working at this group of Crustacea. 
At the present day the following one hundred and thirty-nine species and varieties 
of adult Stomatopoda are known.' ‘The names of those which have not been found in 
the Indo-pacific region are printed in italics; an asterisk (*) indicates that examples 
have been available for examination and a dagger (+) implies that the type specimens 
have been seen. 
' Not including Sgwilla minor, Jurich, and Leptosquilla schmeltzii, A. Milne-Edwards, which are 
based on very immature specimens. 
