The Zoologist— November, 1867. 963 



mullet, Ballan wrasse, the small green wrasse, and, last but not least, 

 turbot; but these are too common to require further notice, and are 

 only half the fish I ought to have listed. 



I was called to see two sword-fish (a large one and a small one) 

 playing, but each time arrived loo late. Porpoises, of course, we 

 saw. 



I obtained a specimen of the long-armed munida {M. Rondeletii), 

 which was washed on shore, in some of the heavy weather, dead, but 

 perfect, except the exterior antenna?. The specimen was small, and 

 deformed by a protuberance of the shell on the right-hand side of the 

 branchial region of the carapace, but was certainly identical with the 

 M. Rondeletii of Professor Bell. 



I obtained from crab-pots shot deep, and after five days' heavy 

 weather, the long-legged spider-crab [Stenorhynchas Phalangium). 



1 took Xantho florida abundantly, mature, but not large; one speci- 

 men was just hardening, after castiug its shell. I took, besides, many 

 crabs (indeed as many as I wished) of smaller size, which puzzled me. 

 They agreed mainly with X. florida, but some had fingers distinctly 

 brown, and not black; some having black fingers had minute beading 

 on the anterior edge of the carapace between the eyes ; some having 

 black fingers and some having brown fingers, had each of them a 

 seam or dotted line, but not a groove down the outer side of the move- 

 able finger. Traces of this seam were to be seen in some of the 

 largest specimens. The shape of the carapace and the ciliation of 

 the hinder legs agreed with those of X. florida. Amongst these small 

 crabs the variations of colour were very remarkable — self-coloured, of 

 a chocolate-flint tint, and again like gray flint, dark brown with three 

 regular white spots, and one specially was self-tinted mauve with a 

 narrow white border all round, so that when at rest it looked precisely 

 like one of the bits of broken water-worn blue shell which are common 

 on every beach. Put into my pan they all exhibited precisely the 

 same peculiarities of habit. The large ones appeared to find them- 

 selves without sufficient scope and lay still, but the smaller ones, 

 without exception, placed themselves in ambush, some under stones 

 and weed: the fliul-coloured ones, the while-spotted and the gray 

 buried themselves in the small pebbles, and lay with just the anterior 

 edge of the carapace and the tops of their large arms (closely folded) 

 exposed on a level with the surrounding pebbles, in which position 

 they looked very much indeed like bits of flint and pebbles, and were 

 manifestly ready to spring on any prey which came within reach. 



