CRUSTACEANS 



Westwood's name would lapse as preoccupied, and Hailstone's megacheles 

 would hold the field as prior to Guise's affinis, Spence Bate thought that 

 Hailstone's megacheles was the same as A. edwardsii (Andouin), and if 

 that could be proved Hailstone would once more have the nominal glory 

 snatched from between his teeth. A. ruber has the movable finger of 

 the greater claw not so long as the immovable one, sometimes called the 

 thumb, whereas in edwardsii and affitiis the movable is not shorter than 

 the immovable finger. To prove the difference constant would need 

 a comparison of numerous specimens. White, who had Hailstone's 

 species at command in the British Museum,* ventures no independent 

 judgment, the state of preservation perhaps precluding any. 



Of the true Hippolytids Mr. Guermonprez reports Hippolyte 

 varians. Leach, as common at Bognor. It has indeed a very extensive 

 distribution, as well as a great capacity for adapting its colour to its 

 environment. Of Hippo/yte fascigera, Gosse, the same diligent recorder 

 mentions a solitary specimen. In 1899 grave doubt was thrown by Mr. 

 A. O. Walker, F.L.S., on the validity of this species. It is certainly 

 the case that those tufts or fascicles of hairs on the body to which the 

 specific name is due are ready to fall off at the slightest provocation, 

 after which there appears to be nothing left by which this form can be 

 distinguished from H. variatis. Mr. Guermonprez states that H. cranchii. 

 Leach, occurs at Bognor now and then. This should probably be 

 referred to Bate's genus Spirontocaris^ 



In the family Crangonidce three species are attributed to Sussex, 

 On Crangon vulgaris (Linn.) Bell quotes from Hailstone's MS. Notes on 

 the Crustacea of Hastings.^ From the same writer's researches two 

 species were published in 1835 as Pontophilus trispinosus. Hailstone, 

 and P. bispinosus, Westwood, though Westwood, while using the 

 generic name Pontophilus, Leach, expressed his opinion that French 

 authors had rightly made it a synonym of Craugon.^ To this genus the 

 two species were for some time referred, until Kinahan in 1862 placed 

 them under a new generic name Cheraphilus, which he on insufficient 

 grounds substituted for PotitophilusJ' Some of his species fall therefore 

 to that genus, but the Sussex species become Philocheras trispinosus (Hail- 

 stone) and Philocheras tianus (Kroyer)." 



The important group of the Schizopoda has not hitherto made a 

 good figure in this county. Only Mysis sp., from Ecclesbourne, is 

 recorded in the Natural History of Hastings,^ under the Stomapoda, an 

 old arrangement now relinquished, which combined the schizopods with 

 the entirely different Squillids. Now however Mr. Guermonprez has 

 removed to some extent the stigma of poverty by cataloguing five species. 

 For these he uses generally the nomenclature adopted in Bell's British 

 Stalk-eyed Crustacea, calling the species Mysis chamaleon, M. vulgaris, 



1 List of British Jnimals in British Museum, p. 41. ^ Stebbing, History of Crustacea, pp. 234, 236. 



' British Stalk-eyed Crustacea, p. 258. * Loudon's Magazine, viii. 261, 265, 395. 



» Proc. Royal Irish Acad. (1862), pt. I, viii. 7. » Stebbing, South African Crustacea (1900), p. 47. 



' First Supplement (1883), p. 45. 



259 



