2A — 
Micippa thalia (Herbst). 
1803. Cancer Thalia, Herbst, Krabben und Krebse, Vol. II1., 
Pt..3: p50. PL. 58, ts: 2. 
1839. Pisa (Mictppe) thalia, de Haan, Crustacea Japonica, decas 
quarta, p. 98, Pl. G, and Pisa (Paramecippe) Thalia, 
Plea shee 
°843. Mictppe thalia, Krauss, Siidafrik. Crustaceen, p. 51. 
884. Micippa thalia, Miers, Crustacea of * Alert,” p. 198, and 
var. haant, p. 524. 
1895. Micippa thalia, Alcock, Journ. Asiat, Soc. Bengal, Vol. 
EO... Pt 2. a2 si 
Miers and Alcock supply numerous references and an exten- 
sive synonymy, including Paranucippa sexspinigera, White, 
1847; Mictppe miliaris, Gerstacker, 1856; Mictppa haani, 
Stimpson, 1857; Mucippe pusilla, Bianconi, 1869; Micippa 
inermis, Haswell, 1880; together with var. aculeata, Bianconi, 
1851, and var. caledonica, Kossmann, 1877. De Haan (loc. cit, 
p. 99), no doubt with regard to the name given on his Plate 23, 
says that the eyes are all but entirely capable of enclosure 
within the orbits ; therefore the species is to be referred not to 
Paramicippa, but to Micippa. He notes the absence of the 
two hindmost denticles of the thorax overlapping the pleon, 
which Herbst describes and figures. The want of these caused 
Krauss to say that the specimen which he names M. thalia, de 
Haan, cannot be assigned to Cancer thalia, Herbst. Probably 
on the same account Stimpson renamed de Haan’s species 
haanw as distinct from Herbst’s thalza. The specimen from the 
Durban Museum, preserved dry, is without these denticles, but 
has on the surface of the granular carapace the typical arrange- _ 
ment of large vertical spines, “* one on either supra-ocular hood, 
two on the gastric region in the middle line, and two placed 
obliquely on either branchial region.” The broad _ bifid 
rostrum is not quite vertically deflexed. The smoothness of 
the very slender cheliped is in rather striking contrast to the 
setose character of the carapace and the other legs. The dark 
coloured finger and thumb, which Alcock describes as minute 
in the adult female, are in this specimen about half as long as the 
palm. 
The specimen from Natal briefly described by Krauss was 
only 5°5 lines wide by 6°5 lines in length, or about half an inch 
square. The Durban Museum specimen, a female, measures 
31 mm. at the widest point of the carapace and 32°5 mm. along 
the median line from the base of the carapace. As in Krauss’s 
