434 Carcinological Fauna of India. 



and is not so strongly hooked ; the dactylns also sometimes has an 

 enlarged tooth — not a distinct lobe — near the middle of its dentary 

 border : 



(4) the anterior border of the raeropodites of the legs is very often 

 qnite free fiom spines, but sometimes there are inconspicuous spiuules 

 where spines exist in M. distincta. 



In the Indian Museum are 23 specimens from the banks of the 

 Hooghly, the mud-flats of Arakan and Tenasserim, and Mergui. The 

 carapace of a large male is a little over 21 millim. long and 29 millim. 

 broad . 



121. Metaplax elegans, de Man. 



Metaplax elegans, de Man, Joarn. Linn. Soc, Zool., XXII. 1888, p. 164, pi. xi. 

 figs. 4-6, and Zool. Jalirb., Syst., VIII. 1891-95, p. 596. 



Metaplax crassipes, de Man, in Weber's Zool. Ergebn. Niederl. Ost-Ind. II. 1892, 

 p. 325, pi. xix. fig. 12 (ipso teste), 



Resembles M. irtdica in the form of the carapace, but can be I'e- 

 cognized by the following characters : — 



(1) tlie groves of the carapace are fainter : 



(2) the lower border of the orbit instead of being irregularly cut 

 into dentiform lobules is very finely and regularly pectinate : 



(3) the chelipeds in the male are not 2| times as long as the cara- 

 pace and are distinctly unequal, the hand of one being decidedly larger 

 than its fellow : the ai-m is not elongate, its edges are granular, and its 

 musical crest, which is very fine, stands at the middle of the inner bor- 

 der, running obliquely parallel with that border : the larger palm is 

 only a little longer than high and its inner surface is granulai*, its 

 fingers are obliquely truncate and strongly channelled, and both of 

 them have a lobe near the middle of their dentary border, the dactylus 

 also is strongly curved, at any rate in the larger hand : 



(4) in the first pair of legs the meropodites have a single subter- 

 minal spine on the anterior border, in the 2nd pair there are from 

 three to six spines, and in the 3rd and 4tb pairs from seven to ten : 

 moreover at the extreme distal end of the posterior border of the 

 meropodites of the two middle pairs of legs there may be two or three 

 Bpinules : 



(5) the abdomen of the male is broader, and has all 7 segments 

 separate. 



In the Indian Museum are 32 specimens from the Godavari Delta 

 and from Meigui : the carapace of the largest male is 10 5 millim. long 

 and 16 broad. 



776 



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