THE CRUSTACEANS OF SOUTH AMERICA 

 By WALDO L. SCHMITT, 



Curator. Division of Marine Im'crtcbratcs, U. S. N^aliona! i\[usruiii 



The conclusion of last year's account of my study of the crustacean 

 fauna of South America under the Walter Rathbone Bacon Travelling 

 Scholarship ^ left me on my way by steamer to that " Vale of Para- 

 dise," Valparaiso, Chile, which I reached November 18, 1926. During 

 sto]^s en route to discharge and take on cargo — stops often of some 

 hours duration — intertidal collections were made at Tocopilla, Antofa- 

 gasta, Chanaral, and Cruz Grande, Chile. Valparaiso I should call 

 the San Francisco of South America in almost every respect, the busi- 

 ness-like atmosphere, the hills, the narrow streets of the older town, 

 and the stimulating " California " climate, all recalling the Ameri- 

 can city. 



Through the kindness of Senor Doniez, part owner of the spiny- 

 lobster fishing concession on the Island of Juan Fernandez, I had the 

 good fortune to be furnished passage to that historic place, the one- 

 time home of Alexander Selkirk, the hero of Robinson Crusoe. The 

 spiny-lobster or crawfish fishery of Juan Fernandez is one of the 

 largest of its kind and the total catch of over 87,000 individuals as 

 given in the Chilean fishery statistics for 1925 for the two companies 

 operating in those waters exceeds in number of pounds the combined 

 catches made in California and Florida, where related species are 

 taken for the market. 



The extremely generous hospitality of Senor Rene Durand and 

 his family rendered most ]:)leasant and profitable a sojourn of 20 

 delightful December days in this veritable earthly paradise. Few 

 places are blessed with such an ideal, healthful and fruitful climate. 

 Preliminary studies on some of the zoological collections 1 brought 

 back with me have disclosed a distinct species of New Zealand crab 

 new to this fauna, and a spider of a genus known from South Africa, 

 Australia, and New Zealand, and now found here, the first record 

 for the Western hemisphere. The zoological evidence of the Poly- 

 nesian and subantarctic af^nities of the life of Juan Fernandez has 

 never been as strong as that based on botanical data, and these two 

 finds are therefore rendered all the more significant. 



' Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 78, No. 7, p. 89, 1927. 



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