Miscellaneous. 103 



of freshwater fish. In this case no difficulty arises, since the date 

 was unquestionably later and since the species are recognized as 

 falling under the Galcuvias of Cuvier, 1817. 



The fourth, I will not venture to say the final, use of the name 

 was by E. Hoffmann in his paper " 31esites, eine neue Gattung der 

 Crinoideen " (Verhandl. lluss.-kais. mineral. Gesell. St. Petersburg, 

 2^ Ser. Bd. i. pp. 1-5, pi. i., 1866), the only species being J/. Pusi- 

 refsJcii. The genus is not a crinoid in the modern restricted sense, 

 hut is usually regarded as a cystid, having affinities with the 

 Eehinoidea, or the Edrioasterida, or the Blastoidea, according to the 

 taste of the person discussing it. The name yerr/rj/s (a mediator) is 

 therefore appropriate enough ; but it belongs to the weevil, and 

 another name must be found for the echinoderm. Xoiie exists 

 already ; even Professor Ha?ckel, in his recent ingenious rearrange- 

 ment and renaming of the Cystidea, did not lay hands on Mesifes. 

 Having occasion to refer to this genus in more than 

 one forthcoming publication, I propose to do so under 

 the name Mesocystis. 



This bibliographic inquiry has been facilitated by the kindly help 

 of my colleagues, E. Bowdler 8harpe, W. 11. Ogilvie Grant, C. 0. 

 Waterhouse, and C. J. Gahan, who, so far as their respective subjects 

 are concerned, agree with the following conclusions. The four 

 Mesites must be spoken of in future thus : — 



the weevil as Mesites, Boheman in Schonherr, 1838 ; 



the bird as Mescenas, nom. mut., Reichenbach, 18-30 ; 



the fish as Galaxias, Cuvier, 1817 ; 



the echinoderm as Mesocijstis, nom. nov. 



E. A. Bather. 

 British Museum (Natural History), 

 Nov. 30, 1897. 



Observations on the Grabs of the Famih/ Dorippidae. 

 By E.-L. BouviER. 



The Dorippidae are crabs which for the most part live at a 

 greater or less depth in the ocean. Prior to the submarine explora- 

 tions eftected during the last twenty years they were divided into 

 three genera {Dorijpjpe, Ethusa, Palicxs), and numbered no more 

 than thirteen species ; since then the number of species has pro- 

 gressively increased until it now amounts to sixty, which are distri- 

 buted among nine genera. Having had most of these forms at my 

 disposal, 1 thought it would be advantageous to make use of them 

 in order to determine the origin and evolution of the family. 



If the DromidiB occupy the front rank among the crabs and 

 connect the latter with the Macrura belonging to the lobster- 

 group, the Dorippidae follow immediately after and must be con- 

 sidered as modified Dromidae. This fact is to-day admitted without 

 dispute by the greater number of zoologists ; but it is all that is 

 known as to the origin of the family, and hitherto no one has fixed 



