CHONDRACANTHID.'E. 823 



Tkibe 1—ANCHORASTOMACEA* 

 Chondracanthiens, 31. Edwards, Hist. Nat. Crust., iii, 491. 



Character — Females. Attached to their prey by means 

 of their foot-jaws, which are stout and armed with strong 

 hooks. One pair of antennae ; generally very distinct. 

 1'horacic feet nearly rndinientary, or represented by appen- 

 dages of considerable size, but differing in form from 

 ordinary feet. 



Males. Free and unattached ; very small and differing 

 totally in appearance from the females. 



PamUy CHONDEACANTHID^. 

 Chondkacanthiens {pars), M. Edwards. 



Character. — Organs representing thoracic feet, in form 

 of considerable-sized, cartilaginous- looking, not articulated 

 appendages ; generally three pairs in number. Three 

 pairs of foot-jaws. 



Bibliographical Hisiory. — Linnaeus, in his ' AVastogota 

 Resa,' or tour through Westrogotha in 1747, describes a 

 species of Lernea, which he afterwards named Lernaa 

 asellifia, that evidently belongs to the family of Chondro- 

 canthidae. This is the first notice of any species that we 

 have met with, but the figure is too indifferently executed 

 to enable us very distinctly to refer it to any one de- 

 scribed. Barbut, in his ' Genera Vermium,' 1703, copies 

 the figure as it is, and mentions it as the Lernea that 

 infests the gills of the cod and ling of the Northern 

 Ocean. Midler, in his ' Zoologia Danica,' 1781, describes 

 and figures three other species infesting the fishes of the 

 Danish seas, two found on soles, and a third on the Cory- 

 phesna rupestris. Delaroche, in the ' Nouv. Bull, des Sc. 

 de la Soc. Philom.,' 1811, describes another species, and 



* kyKvpa, anchor; and (rrofia, mouth. 



