174 Rev. A. M. Norman on the British Species of Alpheus. 



As long ago as 1835, Mr. Hailstone procured off Hastings 

 a shrimp, which he figured and described in ' Loudon's Maga- 

 zine of Natural History,' and to which Mr. Westwood gave 

 the name of Hippolyte rubra ; in a subsequent page, Mr. Hail- 

 stone claimed a right to name it himself, and styled it Hippo- 

 lyte megacheles ; and further on in the same volume, Mr. West- 

 wood established a genus for its reception, calling it Dienecia 

 rubra. Why Prof. Bell omitted this species in his ' History 

 of British Stalk-Eyed Crustacea,' I cannot understand. In 

 1854, Mr. Guise, having found the same species in the island 

 of Herm, described it in the ^Annals,' and named it ^^AJpheus 

 affinis.^^ In 1862 Prof. Heller pointed out the distinction be- 

 tween the Red- Sea species {Alpheus Edwardsiij Aud.) and 

 that found in the Mediterranean {Alpheus Edwardsiiy Milne- 

 Edwards), and named the latter Alpheus platyrhynchus. The 

 Alpheus now found by Mr. Bate off the Dodman is the Medi- 

 terranean species, and the same which had been previously 

 taken in our seas by Hailstone and by Guise. As I write, 

 thirty or forty specimens of this Alpheus^ procured by me at 

 Herm, are before me, and also a specimen of the true Alpheus 

 Edwardsii of Audouin, for which I am indebted to Prof. Heller. 

 From these examples I draw up the diagnostic characters which 

 follow. 



Alpheus Edwardsii J Audouin. 



1826. Athanas Edwardsii, Audouin, Savigny, Descript. de I'Egypte, pi. x. 



fig. 1 (figures admirable). 

 1840 (? about), Alpheus Edwardsii, Gu^rin, Iconogr. du Eegne Anim. 



Crust, pi. 21. fig. 3 (copy from Savigny). 

 1861. Alpheus Edwardsii, Heller*, Sitzungsb. d. k. Akad. d. W, Math.- 



nat. CI. xliv. Bd. i. p. 267. 



Supraorbital portions of anterior margin of carapace rounded, 

 the front thus furnished with only a single central point, 

 ^. e. the rostrum. The left first pereiopod much larger, and 

 of totally dififerent structure from the right ; outer side of 

 hand (not furnished with any spine-like central point pro- 

 jecting at the junction of finger and thumb) having a deep 

 incised curved groove widest at the distal extremity, sud- 

 denly contracting in breadth towards the base, and at the 

 same time curving downwards ; finger large, very broad 

 and massive, the outer margin very strongly arched, form- 

 ing a complete semicircle; inner margin furnished at the 

 base with a large tubercular process, which fits into a corre- 

 sponding socket in the thumb. Right hand very much 

 smaller, and formed more after the pattern of the hand in 



* Beitrage zur Crustaceen-Fauna des rothen Meeres. 



