CRUSTACEANS 



the ' Long-horned shrimp,' for the proper horn or rostrum Is quite short, scarcely reaching beyond 

 the eyes. Couch says : ' This species has been hitherto unknown as British, but I have examined 

 several specimens taken from the stomachs of fishes from the depths of 1 5 or 20 fathoms. Some of 

 them were of larger size than described from the Mediterranean ; one, not the largest, measuring 3 

 inches from snout to tail, with antennae of the length of 5 inches.' 1 According to Risso this still 

 rather mysterious animal is semi-transparent, yellowish, with some reddish tints, the second 

 antennae and the longer of the two flagella in the first antennae whitish, the first legs a fine 

 red above, a clear yellow below. Risso himself identifies it with ' Cancer glaber, Olivi, 

 Zool. Adriat. p. 51. PI. V, fig. 4.' Milne-Edwards and O. G. Costa agree that Olivi's 

 species is Pontonia custos (Forskal), and Costa decides that Olivi's variety represented in fig. 5 

 is quite a different species from that of his fig. 4, but still not Autonomaea. Both Milne-Edwards 

 and O. G. Costa speak of Desmarest as having independently examined the species. That is, I believe, 

 an entire misapprehension. Desmarest adds nothing to Risso, who on his own showing ought to 

 have called his species glabra. Neither does Couch add anything, so that we are left alone with 

 Risso, the inaccurate Risso. 



To the family Processidae, in which the mandibles are without palp, belongs Processa canali- 

 culata, Leach, often called Nika edulis, Risso. Under the latter name Cocks reports it from 

 ' Stomach of Morrhua aeglefinus, trawl refuse ; rare ' ; and adds, ' Dr. Vigurs procured two living 

 specimens of this rare shrimp, 1 8 September, 1849, Bar Pi nt -' Bate says : 'We have taken it 

 occasionally on stony ground in about 30 fathoms of water.' a With regard to ' Nika Couchii Bell, 

 Stalk-eyed Crust, p. 278,' Bate remarks: 'We have taken this in the same locality as the other. 

 With all due deference to the ability and acute observation of the author of the work cited, I must 

 insist that this is nothing more than a variety of N. Edulis. It was first found by Mr. Couch and 

 sent to Professor Bell, who never saw but this one specimen.' * Bate's opinion is probably correct. 

 The genus Prtcessa is peculiar in having the first pair of legs in general not truly a pair, since one of 

 the couple is chelate and the other simple. 



The Alpheidae have a mandibular palp. The genus Alpheus exhibits a first pair of legs ill 

 matched in size and shape, but both members chelate. The second pair are also chelate, though on 

 a minute scale. Cocks says of A. ruber, Milne-Edwards, 'The first specimen I found in the 

 stomach of the Gadus morrhua, November, 1845. From that date to the present year, 1849, 1 h* ve 

 procured more than fifty specimens, old and young.' Bell says : ' The only two specimens hitherto 

 found were obtained by Mr. Cocks, of Falmouth, who procured them from the stomachs of cod- 

 fish.' 4 Bate, after referring to Bell, says : ' It has since been taken off the Dodman in thirty fathoms 

 of water. Also in Plymouth Sound. Its more general habitat is on stony ground in about thirty 

 fathoms of water. Its colour salmon, and red at the joints.' 8 In 1868 Bate reported from shelly 

 ground off the Dodman two specimens of Alphtus edwardsii, which, he says, ' we believe to be the 

 first time that this latter species has been recorded as British. We had them alive for several days. 

 Their colour is a brilliant crimson red, A. ruber being rather paler and more banded.' 6 He figures 

 the species, and in 1878 again asserts the capture of A. edwardsii off" the Dodman, but takes no notice 

 of the evidence which the Rev. A. M. Norman had adduced in 1868 that the species figured by 

 Bate was in reality A. megacheles (Hailstone). 7 From this, Norman says, 'A. ruber may at once be 

 distinguished by the four longitudinal carinae of the larger and greatly flattened hand." He further 

 notices that three Cornish specimens of A. ruber in his collection have the right cheliped the larger, 

 and that Cryptophthalmus ruber of Costa is unquestionably a synonym of A. megacheles, not of A. ruber. 

 Bate, in supposing his erroneous record of A, edwardsii to be the first entry of that name in the 

 British fauna, overlooked a paper by J. Couch ' On the discovery of Alpheus Edwardsii on the Coast 

 of Cornwall.' 8 Therein Couch mentions two specimens found in the sponge, Halichondria palmata, 

 hooked up from a depth of thirty fathoms. After dislodgment from the sponge the Crustaceans were 

 plunged in a bowl of sea water. ' The larger of the two was about nine-tenths of an inch in length 

 from the rostrum to the tail, but although of such small size they traversed the vessel with an appar- 

 ently threatening aspect, carrying the larger claw aloft, and especially when irritated, snapping it 

 hard, with such vigour as to be heard over a room of moderate size. The sound resembled, as well 

 in kind as strength, the cracking of a filbert nut, and was reproduced as often as the little creature 

 was irritated.' He describes the colour of the larger example a beautiful reddish orange, dark in the 

 region of the stomach ; of the smaller specimen pale white. But neither did this A. edwardsii stand 

 the test of critical examination by Norman, who showed that it was not an Alpheus but the Typton 

 spongicola of Costa. The Typton spongiosus, described by Bate in 1868, and which as T. spongiosum 

 he upholds in 1878, saying, 'Several specimens of this species were found inhabiting a sponge in 



1 Fauna, p. 79. ' ' Revision,' p. 36. * Ibid. 



4 Brit, stalk-eyed Crust, p. 271. s ' Revision,' p. 37. 



6 Brit. Assoe. Report for 1867, p. 283, and Ann. Nat. Hist. (1868), Ser. 4, vol. ii, p. 119. 



7 Ann. Nat. Hist. (Scr. 4), vol. ii, p. 175. 8 Journ. Linn. Soc. Zoology (1861), p. 210. 



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