A HISTORY OF KENT 



The Portunidae, while agreeing with the Xanthidae in regard to 

 the resting position of the first antennae, are distinguished both from 

 them and the Cancridae by a character which in its full development is 

 much more striking to the eye. Instead of having the terminal joint of 

 the last legs subulate, they have it very much flattened so as to make a 

 convenient swimming paddle. This character, however, is subject to 

 many gradations, so that in the common shore crab, Carcinus maenas 

 (Linn.), the joint in question is narrowly lanceolate, only a little more 

 paddle-like than the stiliform ' fingers ' of the three preceding pairs. 

 One may look upon this as a natural accommodation to the shore- 

 tramping habits of the animal. Leach says that ' this very common 

 species inhabits all the estuaries and rocky shores of Great Britain, 

 lurking beneath stones and tangle or burrowing in the sand.' ' Its range 

 indeed is very extensive, since it has been traced up the North Sea into 

 almost arctic waters, to the Black Sea and the Red Sea, to Brazil, to 

 the Bay of Panama, to the Hawaiian Islands, and now is shown by 

 Messrs. Fulton and Grant to be establishing itself in Australian waters.'^ 

 Adam White refers some of the specimens in the British Museum to 

 ' Sandgate, Kent. From old collections,'^ and the Handbook to Dover 

 says tha.t' Carci/ius Maenas, the common shore or green crab, is abundant, 

 and a great source of pleasure to all children.' Of the genus Portunus, 

 Fabricius, at least four species can be attributed to these waters. Bell, 

 after mentioning other localities for P. puber (Linn.), the velvet 

 swimming crab, adds that he has ' taken it on the southern coast of 

 Kent, where, however, it appears to be more rare,' ' The Handbook to 

 Dover says, ' Portunus puber and depurator are swimming crabs, usually 

 found near the lower water mark of our coast line.' Of P. mannoreus. 

 Leach, Bell says, ' at Sandgate, in the month of May, 1844,1 procured 

 by dredging nearly four hundred specimens at two casts of the dredge, 

 of which about three-fourths were females: several of these were carry- 

 ing spawn, which is of a rich orange colour.' ° Of P. piisi/lus. Leach, 

 Bell quotes the statement made by Mr. W. Thompson, the Irish 

 naturalist, ' I have several times taken it in the stomach of fishes ; in 

 one instance, in a Trigla Giirnardus, taken in the open sea off Dover.'* 

 As this little species occurs off the Isle of Man, all along the southern 

 coast of England, and in the Firth of Forth, the friendly intervention of 

 a gurnard may suffice to establish its Kentish domicile. For P. holsatui, 

 Fabricius, we must have recourse again to White's British Museum 

 Catalogue which attributes specimens of this species to ' Sandgate : from 

 the collection of Col. Montagu." The distinctions between this species and 

 P. marmoreus are so undemonstrative that some may prefer to write the 

 two under the older name given by Fabricius. The furry coat of the 

 velvet crab (P. puber) and the rich blue of the exposed parts distinguish 



' Mdacostraca Podophthalmata Bntunniae, text to pi. 5 (18 1 6). 

 ' The Victorian Naturalist, xvii. 145 (1900). 

 ' Catalogue of British Crustacea in Brit. iMus. p. 12 (1850). 

 * British Stalk-eyed Crustacea, p. 92. 



' Loc. cit. p. 107. * Loc. cit. p. 113. ' Op. cit. p. 15. 



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