178 



CRUSTACEA. 



BY 



E. J. MIERS. 



The Crustacea collected by Dr. R. Coppinger on the north-western, 

 northern, and north-eastern coasts of Australia are very numerous; 

 and are interesting not only on account of the large number of new 

 or rare species obtained, but also on account of the careful manner 

 in which in nearly every instance the nature of the sea-bottom and 

 depth of water &c. was recorded. 



Until the publication of Mr. W. A. Has well's comprehensive work 

 on the Podophthalmious and Edriophthalmious Crustacea of Aus- 

 tralia*, but few systematists had dealt specially with this depart- 

 ment of the fauna of this district. 



To the Australian species enumerated by Milne-Edwards in his 

 great workf, numerous additions were, however, made by Prof. J. 

 D. Dana in the Report on the Crustacea collected by the United 

 States Exploring Expedition under Commodore Wilkes £, these 

 being, with few exceptions, from the coast of New South Wales. 



In 1856 Dr. J. P. Kinahan § published an account of a small 

 collection of marine Decapoda collected by himself at Port Phillip, 

 Victoria ; and in 1865 Dr. Hess || gave a systematic account of the 

 then known species of Decapoda of Eastern Australia, based upon 

 the work of previous authors and a collection from Sydney in the 

 Museum of Gottingen. 



In the same year appeared the Report by Prof. Camil Heller on 

 the Crustacea collected by the Austrian frigate ' Nbvara'H, whereir 

 twenty-four species are enumerated, also from Sydney. Reference 

 may also here be made to an account of the Astaeidse of Aus 

 tralia (" Ueberblick der neuholliindischen Flusskrebse ") by Dr. von 

 Martens **. 



Mr. Haswell's recently published and very useful Catalogue 

 which was not received until this Report was considerably advanced 



* ' Catalogue of the Australian Stalk- and Sessile-eyed Crustacea.' Svdnei 

 1882. 



t ' His.oire Naturelle de= OrustaceV (1834-40). 

 J United States Exploring Expedition, vols. xiii. & xiv., Crustacea (1852-53 

 § Journal of the Royal Dublin Society, vol. i. pt. 3, p. Ill (1856). 

 || Arehiv f. IS'aturgeschichte, xxxi. p. 127 (l80. r >). 

 *j ' Reise der osterreichischen Fregatte NoYara,' Crustaceen (1805). 

 ** Monatsbericht der Akad. Wissensch. Berlin, p. 615 (1868). 



