82 "TERRA NOVA" EXPEDITION. 



SiTB-FAMiLY LEUCIFERINAE. 



9. Leucifer hatei, Borr., 1915. 



Lucifer reynaudii, Bate, "Challenger" Macrura, p. 466, pi. LXXXIV (1888); Ortmann, 



Ergebn. Plankton-Exped., II, G, b, p. 40 (1893). 

 nicifer hatei, Borradaile, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (8), XVI, p. 228 (1915). 



I have already (loc. cit.) given reasons for holding this species to be distinct from 

 L. acestra, Dana, 1852, with which it has been identified by Kemp (Trans. Linn. Soc. 

 Lend. (2), ZooL, XVI, i, p. 58, 1913). Kemp, however, has recently (Mem. Ind. Mus. 

 V, p. 323) maintained his views, on the ground that the diflerences which I believed to 

 exist between the two species were discovered only by means of the figures given by 

 Dana and Bate. It is, of course, now impossible to refer to Dana's specimens, and in 

 the case of his species one is compelled to form a judgment upon the evidence given by 

 his description and very clear figures, but Mr. Kemp appears to have overlooked my 

 express statement that I had had specimens of Bate's L. reynaudii in my hands. Both 

 the "Terra Nova" examples and those of Bate, now in the British Museum, agree 

 closely with Bate's figures and description, and differ from those of Dana in the points 

 I have specified. In one point, indeed. Bate is more exact than my key {loc. cit., 

 p. 230). In the male, the length of the sixth abdominal segment is as I have stated. 

 In the female, it is a little longer than the uropod. This is shown by Bate. He also 

 shows the characteristic difference in the shape of the end of the exopodite of the 

 uropod in the two sexes. In the female, the spine on the outer side is placed a little 

 before the end ; in the male it arises from the outer angle of the subtruncate end. As 

 some of my specimens are nearly as long as Dana's (y^, as against f, of an inch), it is 

 not likely that the very marked departures from his description which they show are 

 due to their being in a different stage of growth. In these circumstances it seems 

 inadvisable to refer them to Dana's species, and I have therefore called them L. hatei. 



Dana's L. reynaudi is, as Kemp rightly points out, a different species from that to 

 which Bate gave the same name. Kemp now identifies it with " L. typus auct." therein 

 reversing a previous decision of his own (Linn. Trans, loc. cit.). But in truth there is 

 no " L. typus auct." at least in the sense of a single species, recognizably the same in 

 the works of a number of authors. I have already {loc. cit.) pointed out the lack of 

 agreement between the forms known as " Z. typus" by various writers, and, believing 

 that the latter have probably in most cases given a correct account of the specimens 

 before them, have proposed to treat as species the various forms which the descriptions 

 seem to reveal. Such a procedure, if it run the risk of temporarily burdening science 

 with the necessity of observing distinctions which have little significance, has on the 

 other hand the advantage of leading more speedily to the analysis of the problem, and 

 so to its solution. Kemp has cited in particular Bate and Ortmann as sponsors for the 

 L. typus, which he refers to L. reynaudi, Dana. In view of the new evidence he adduces, 

 it is very likely that he is right in regarding Bate's species as identical with the true 



