"GLASS CRABS/ 



39 



Lobster ; sufficiently graphic epithets strong in the descriptive 

 name-power that lurks so often in the rough harvesters of the sea. 



Scyilarus is a strange mingling of the uncouth and the beau- 

 tiful. His form is clumsy ; short squat body with weak legs and 

 with disproportionate development of the second antennaa. These, 

 which in the Lobster and the Crawfish (Palinurus) are elegant, 

 long, gently tapering rods equal and exceeding in length that of the 

 body dwindle in Scyilarus into short broad plates very evident in 

 the figure drawn beneath. But the coloring ! That is superb : In 



general tint a rather light chestnut brown, 

 the depressions and deep lines of the closely 

 covering fine sculpturing are of deeper tone, 

 almost black ; in striking contrast to this the 

 anterior portion of each of the abdominal 

 rings is of a brilliant scarlet. The short eye- 

 stalks are also scarlet, giving these organs, 

 with the black pigment disc showing distinct 

 through the transparent cornea and retina, 

 a striking resemblance to those little scarlet 

 and black beans (Abrus), which bottled up, 

 form such familiar objects on the mantel- 

 shelves of our seafaring men's homes. Un- 

 doubtedly Scyilarus is the most beautifully 

 coloured of our large Crustaceans. 

 The number and arrangement of the limbs are the same as 

 in the Lobster, but unlike the latter animal, all the five pairs of 

 ambulatory limbs are formed on the same pattern each terminating 

 in a short sharp claw none pincer-like as in the Lobster. 



A very different creature issues from the egg. Instead of a 

 short legged, stout body, an elegant glassy-transparent and colour- 

 less, leaf-like organism appears, delicate, fragile, with four enormously 

 long, six-jointed limbs, freely armed with spines. And two of these 

 spider-like limbs give off branches ending in delicately plumose hairs. 

 Further and minute examination shows the body to consist of 

 three distinct divisions a broadly oval flattened head, larger in size 

 than the remainder of the body ; a thorax, rounded and likewise 

 flattened leaf-like, and of about half the size only of the head ; lastly 

 the abdomen, least developed of the three parts, narrow, elongated, 

 and without appendages. 



HEAD : From the anterior margin of the head spring two pairs 

 of simple antenna?, the posterior extremely small, only some fifth the 

 length of the anterior ones. Between these lie two great facetted 

 eyes, borne on long stout peduncles ; while in the median line just 

 between the bases of the eyestalks, is a tiny X shaped mass of dark 



SCYLLAEUS AllCTUS. 



