BIHANG TILL K. SV, VET.-AKAD. HANDL. BAND 27. AFD. IV. N:0 8. 37 



stat. 22. East Greenland, Mackenzie Bay N. of Kaiser Franz Joseph 

 Fiord, depth 12 — 18 m., mud, 9/VIII, -det. Lönnberg. 



Sabinea was founded in 1842 by Kröyer to receive Sabine's 

 Crangon septcmcarinata. Låter on Smith drew the attention 

 to the fact that two forms had been confounded under that 

 name, the cbief differences being the form of the rostrum and 

 telson and the more pronounced armament of the longitudinal 

 cristce on the carapace. Still, there exist some doubts, if Sa- 

 binea Sarsii may be entitled to specific value. Spence Bate, 

 in his Challenger Report on the Macrura,^ describes and figu- 

 res as Sabinea septemcarinata specimens taken off Nova Scotia 

 which undoubtedly belong to Sabinea Sarsii. Låter on, 

 Ortmann and Doflein consider them as identical, without 

 giving any reasons for this view. Doflein despatches the 

 whole matter with the following passage:^ »Ich halte septem- 

 carinata und sarsi fiir identisch öder höchstens fur Varietäten 

 derselben Art. Mein Material zeigt bedeutende Schwank ungen 

 in den von Smith angegebenen Merkmalen.» It is only to be 

 regretted that the author of that work did not deal with 

 any details in favour of this argument, whereby he might 

 at least have thrown some fresh light on our knowledge of 

 Arctic Decapoda. 



When examining my material of Sabinea I found that all 

 specimens agree exactly with the description given by Kröyer 

 and Smith. The form of the rostrum, and that of the telson 

 and its armament with spines, closely resemble that of Sa- 

 binea septemcarinata. The only deviating point applies to 

 the number of spines of the median dorsal crista. In a number 

 of individuals of smaller size, up to 40 mm. length, there are 

 nearly regularly six spines, instead af five as Smith has ob- 

 served in his specimens, and, besides that, the spines of the 

 cristce are also more prominent than in the older ones; but 

 that, however, may be accounted for by the age, as we may 

 notice the same fact in Sclerocrangon. Only in one old fe- 

 male of 72 mm. length I found six small spines in the me- 

 dian dorsal crista^ but, in all other fullgrown specimens, 

 there was the regular number of five small ones, and in no 

 single specimen out of all that I have examined, have I found 



» 1. c. p. 498, pl. LXXXIX, fig. 2, pl. XC, 

 * 1. c. p. 328. 



