474 A COENISH FAUNA. 



TMs species "was first found in South Wales, several years ago, 

 and no naturalist appears to have met with it since. In the 

 summer of 1865 I again met with it in tolerable abundance. I 

 took it with a dredge off the entrance to Plymouth Sound, and 

 seeing it with a number of shrimps in the basket of a fish woman, 

 at Teignmouth, I purchased the entire stock, and hastening to the 

 beach, there, with the incoming tide I took many specimens, 

 which I kept alive. This, the prettiest of all the pretty genus, 

 has the habit of burrowing in the sand, and it is probably to this 

 circumstance that it has not been met with more frequently. 



An interesting point in the development of this animal I have 

 been enabled to make out and publish in the Report on the 

 Marine Fauna and Flora of South Devon and Cornwall, presented 

 to the British Association for 1865. Early in June we were 

 enabled to capture many specimens of the young animal in 

 various degrees of progressive growth, a circumstance that has 

 enabled us to declare that the genus GlaueotJioe described by Mr. 

 Milne Edwards in the Annales Set. Nat., for March, 1830, Prophy- 

 laxoi Latrielle, is none other than an immature stage of Pagurus; 

 at this period the little creature swims freely in the ocean, and 

 so continues until obliged by an increase of growth to take refuge 

 in a shell, when he settles down and becomes a Hermit crab. 



P OR CELL AN AB^. 



Gektjs, Porcellana. — Lamarch. 



"Carapace nearly circular; hands broad and twisted; the 

 hinder pair of legs slight and weak, bent on the other, and end- 

 ing with a finger. The abdomen (pleon) bent under as in 

 Brachyurus, but ending in a fan-shaped tail." 

 Porcellana platycheles (Hairy Crab). — MUne Edivards, LTist. des 



Crust., t. a, p. 255; Pennant, p. 6, fig. 12; Bell, Stalk-Eijed 



Crust., p. 190. 

 "Abundant under stones at low water mark. It is incapable of 

 moving in any dirction except backwards, not lifting its claws, 

 but drawing them after it ; the antennae lying on the sides of the 

 carapace in the direction of its march. Unlike our other crabs, 

 it does not wait for an attack to throw off its legs ; but siezing 

 an enemy with its nippers, it leaves them to do all the injury of 

 which they are capable, whilst itself has retreated to a place 

 of safety." 



