48 
he adopts the later name in preference to capensis. But he 
remarks that P. tomentosa (which he identifies with P. capensis) 
is extraordinarily near to P. dentipes, adding, however, to de 
Haan’s discriminating marks, the want of granules on the sides 
of the carapace. Miers also notices in 1886 that the South 
African specimens which he has examined have’ the branchial 
regions smooth or nearly so. This is also the case with the 
specimens submitted to my investigation. It has indeed never 
been proposed to amalgamate P. capensis with P. dentipes, but 
many authors have made it a synonym of P. chabrus (Linn.), 
which in 1764, and for long afterwards, was laconically de- 
scribed as enjoying ‘“thorace hirto suborbiculato mutico, 
manibus ovatis muricatis,” and as living in the Indian Ocean. 
The specific name chabrus is hard to explain, unless it is a 
mistake for scaber. On the obscurity of the definition Herbst 
comments in 1788, an epoch when obscure definitions were far 
from uncommon. Moreover, though P. capensis is recorded 
from New Zealand, Tasmania, New South Wales, and Chili, as 
well as from South Africa, it has not been recorded from the 
Indian Ocean, which Linnaeus gives as the habitat of P. chabrus. 
In this species the broad centre of the trifid front has in the 
male an apse-like border of tubercles, within which are planted 
two denticles transversely, while the apparently rounded apex 
is deflexed beyond the tubercles to a rather narrow truncate 
terminal line. There is also a low tubercle behind each lateral 
division of the front, as noted by Dana.* 
In the female specimen the tubercles being less developed 
let it be seen that the median piece of the front which carries 
them has the sides somewhat sinuous. 
In the chelipeds the last five joints have ridges of teeth or 
tubercles, those on the hands being longitudinal, some nine 
in number. Three or four on the movable finger become 
smooth and coalesce towards the apex. The broad fourth 
joint of the ambulatory limbs has three tolerably smooth ribs 
on the outer surface, and the anterior margin cut into a rather 
indefinite number of very unequal teeth. The remaining 
joints are strongly ribbed, and in common with the fourth 
joint have lines of conspicuous pubescence. The fingers have 
the concave margin armed with spines, successively larger 
towards the apex. 
* In Dana’s work, p. 370, the words non multispinosus over P. tomentosa 
are an obvious mis-print for multispinosus. 
