326 



COLLECTIONS FROM MELANESIA. 



distal extremity of its fourth and fifth joints five protuberances, 

 of which the two outermost are small, and the three inner longer, strong 

 and subacute ; near the middle of the ventral surface of the fourth 

 joint is a small process (as in I\ Jlimin'nse), and a series of minute 

 spinules or protuberances along the upper margin of the fifth joint; 

 the joints also, except perhaps the eighth, are marked with longi- 

 tudinal impressed lines ; the eighth has a scries of spinules on its 

 inferior surface ; besides the terminal claw there are, as already 

 noted, two strong accessory claws. The first to third joints of the 

 legs are scantily clothed with very short hair ; the distal protu- 

 berances of the fourth joint and the fifth joints are more thickly 

 clothed with longer hair, and the sixth to eighth joints again with a 

 much finer, more scanty pubescence. 



Three specimens are in the collection, obtained respectively at 

 Dundas Straits, 17 fms. (Xo. 161), Thursday Island, 4-5 fms. (Xo. 

 165), and in Prince of Wales Channel, 7 fms. (Xo. 16!J). As in 

 these specimens the thigh-joints are not specially dilated and the 

 genital pores are small, I believe them to be males. 



This species resembles Phoxichilidium insigne, Hoek (t. c. p. 82, 

 pi. xiv. figs. 5-7), from Bahia, in the curious distal protuberances of 

 the fourth and fifth joints of the legs, but these are absent from 

 the second and third joints in P. hoekii, and our species differs in 

 many other most important points, as {e.g.) in the closely approxi- 

 mated leg-bearing processes of the body, the terminally-placed second 

 joints of the mandibles, and the more robust body and append- 

 ages. The first-mentioned of these characters will also separate 

 this species from P. Jluminense, Kroyer (see Hock, t. c. p. 81, 

 pi. xiv. figs. 1-4), from which it is also distinguished by the 

 distal protuberances of the leg-joints &c. The existence of these 

 protuberances separates this species from those other species of 

 Phoxichilidium described by Dr. Hoek in which the leg-bearing 

 processes are more or less approximated, and from the two Austral 

 species described by White* as Nymphon phasma and N. johnstonia- 

 num, which Dr. Hoek has shown belong to Phoxichilidium. The 

 "points" mentioned by White as occurring at the end of the oints 

 in N. johnstonianum are, I may add, only short stiff seta. 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. xv. p. 125 (1847). 



