22 
> 
some the exactness may be seriously open to question, and, 
apart from these manufactured complications, there is one 
supplied by nature ready made, when, as in the case of Neolt- 
thodes, it allows an individual animal in the course of a lifetime 
to exhibit far greater differences of habit than are commonly 
required for establishing two valid species. 
CRUSTACEA MALACOSTRACA. 
BRACHYURA GENUINA. 
OXYRRHYNCHA. 
Fam. Mamaiidae. 
1895. Maznae, Alcock, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, Vol. LXIV., 
Pt. 2, spp: Gb, 3.236. 
1898. Majinae, Ortmann, Bronn’s Thierreich, Vol. V., Pt. 2, 
Lieferung 52, p. 1168. 
1899. Maztinae,, Alcock, Deep-sea Brachyura of the ~ Investi- 
gator,” p. 55. 
1902. Mattdae (part), Stebbing, South African Crustacea, 
Pie. pe. 
Alcock divides the family Maiidae in the larger sense into 
four sub-families, Inachinae, Acanthonychinae, Pisinae, and 
Maiinae. I have heretofore explained that in raising these 
sub-divisions to the rank of families, the third ought to be 
called Blastidae. The introduction of the name Mamatidae 
in place of Matidae needs a somewhat fuller justification. 
The genus Maja, with the alternative spelling Maza, was 
established by Lamarck in 1801 (Systéme des Animaux sans 
vertébres, pp. 154, 428), nominally to include the two genera 
which Fabricius had called Inachus and Parthenope. But 
the reference to Herbst which Lamarck gives for the first of 
these divisions has nothing to do with Jnachus. It refers the 
reader to Herbst’s description and figure. of Cancer maja, 
which is a Lithodes. As both Inachus and Parthenope are 
still valid, Maza on its author’s own showing has no stanuing 
place, and by no stretching of accepted rules can it be applied 
to a genus which is distinct from both of them. It is un- 
necessary, therefore, to insist on the further inconvenience 
that, as Miss M. J. Rathbun has already pointed out, Mata 
