ON CRUSTACEA BROUGHT BY DR WILLEY FROM THE 



SOUTH SEAS. 



By the Rev. T. R. R. STEBBIXG, F.R.S. 

 With Plates LXIV.— LXXIV. 



Already two reports have appeared on Dr Willey's extensive collection of Crustacea 

 from tropical waters and islands of the south-west Pacific. In 1898 a new species of 

 Caprellidae from Lifu was described by Dr Paul Mayer, and in 1899 Mr L. A. Borradaile, 

 after examining eighty-two species of Stomatopoda and Macrura, determined no less than 

 twenty of them to be forms new to science. In the lower groups the proportion of 

 new forms has proved to be even more considerable, so far at least as concerns the 

 specimens actually investigated. There is still a residuum of small creatures, of which 

 many but more probably few may prove to have been hitherto undescribed. For various 

 reasons these are omitted from the present report, the leading motives for this neglect 

 being that the report itself should not be indefinitely expanded or indefinitely delayed. 

 The species now recorded are forty-six in number, distributed over thirty-four genera, 

 of the Malacostraca, Entomostraca, and Thyrostraca. Of the genera eight are here for 

 the first time established, and of the species twenty-three are registered as new. Ex- 

 ceptional interest will be recognized as attaching to the Th\Tostracan genus which I have 

 named Koleolepas. Upon this I venture to quote from a private letter in which Dr Willey 

 modestly says, ' I have a foolish tendency to feel a trifle elated about Koleolepas n. g. 

 I imagined that it was not a very frequent occurrence for a new genus of Cirripede to 

 turn up, but this one struck me as being quite remarkable with its disc of attachment 

 and contractile cylindrical body as well as its peculiar paguroid habitat, although that is 

 very likely not constant.' Anchicaligus nautili (Willey) and Panaietis incamerata, both 

 from the pallial chambers of mollusca, are not undeserving of notice. From P. J. van 

 Beneden long ago to Mr Thomas Scott the other day, authors have called attention to 

 the large opportunity for finding crustacean parasites which almost the whole range of 

 the aquatic fauna provides. Of this it will be seen that Dr Willey has successfully 

 availed himself Neither in this nor in other respects has he been deterred by the 

 exigencies of his own special research from advancing collateral branches of knowledge. 

 Rather, he has utilized those exigencies for that very purpose, so that, at least in regard 

 to ' natural history.' he has earned a right to say, Scientiae nihil a me alienum puto. 



80—2 



