DECAPODA. 
175 
preceding subgenera, and do not quite extend to the lateral extre- 
mities of tlie shell. The intermediate antennae are always terminated 
by two very distinct divisions. The inhabitants of the French 
colonies designate them by various appellations, such as Tour lour oux, 
Crabes-pehits, Crates de terre, and Crates violets, which may apply 
to dilferent species, or to varieties from age ; no observations worthy 
of credence have as yet settled this point of nomenclature. These 
animals more particularly inhabit intertropical countries and those 
which adjoin them. Their habits are a constant source of interest to 
travellers, but by abstracting from their accounts all improbable and 
doubtful facts, their history will be as follows. The greater portion 
of their life is passed on land, where they secrete themselves in holes, 
from which they never issue but at night. Some inhabit cemeteries. 
Once in the year, about the spawning season, they collect in immense 
bands and pursue a direct course to the sea, heedless of all obstacles ; 
after depositing their ova, they return much enfeebled. It is said 
that they seal up the moxith of their burrow during the time they are 
casting their shell. When this is effected, and while yet soft, they are 
called Boursiers, and their flesh is much esteemed, although some- 
times poisonous This quality is attributed to the fruit of the man- 
chineel, which they are siipposed, falsely perhaps, to have eaten. In 
some of them, such as the 
UcA, Lat., 
The size of the feet, commencing with those of the second pair, 
progressively diminishes ; they are extremely pilose, and the tarsi 
simply sulcated without any remarkable spines or dentations. 
The only species known — Cancer uca, L., Herbst., VI, 38, 
inhabits the marshes of Guiana and of Brazil. 
In others, the third and fourth pair of feet are longer than the 
second and fifth ; the tarsi are marked with dentated or very spinous 
ridges. They form t’.7o subgenera. 
Cardisoma, Lat. 
The four antennae and all the joints of the external foot-jaws 
exposed ; the three first joints of these same foot-jaws straight ; 
the third shorter than the second, emarginated superiorly and nearly 
coi’diform; the first of the lateral antennae almost similar and broad. 
They are called Crates tlancs at the Antilles, though sometimes 
they have a yellow shell striped with red *. 
Gecarcinus, Leach. 
The four antennae covered by the clypeus; second and third joints 
of the external foot-jaws, large, flattened, arcuated, and leaving a space 
between their inner sides, the last one forming a curvilinear triangle, 
obtuse at the summit ; it reaches to the clypeus, and covers the three 
following ones, or the fourth, fifth, and sixth. 
* Cancer cordalus, L .; — Cancer carnifex, Herbst., XLI, 1 IV, 37 ; — C. guan- 
humi, Maregrave. The tarsi have four ridges ; there are two a<lditional ones in the 
Gecarcini. 
