DR. G. C. BOURNE ON THE RANINID.E. 25 
The Eaninidfe : a Stm!}' in Carcinology. By Gilbert C. Bourne, M.A., 
D.Sc, F.E.S., F.L.S., late Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and Linacre 
Professor of Zoology and Coinparative Anatomy. 
(Plates 4-7.) 
[Read 1.5th December, 1921.] 
MM. A. Milne Edwards and E. L. Bouvier conclude the Introduction to 
their Report on the Deomiacea and O.xystomata dredged bj'' the U.S. Coast 
Survey Steamer 'Blake' with the following sentence: — "Nous avons 
distrait du groupe des Oxystomes la famille des Raninides qui nous parait 
aberrante a plus d'un titre. Ces Oxystomes anormaux sont representes par 
de curieuses formes nouvelles dans les materiaux vecueillis par le Blake ; 
nous les etudions avec la plus grand detail, et ils font prochainement I'objet 
d\ine etude tres complete." So far as I have been able to ascertain by 
search in the records of zoological literature, somewhat incomplete as they 
are through disturbances arising out of the late war, this promised memoir 
on the Raniuidse has not yet been published, and the following pages give 
an account of my own studies on this aberrant and, as I shall strive to show, 
primitive family of crabs. My attention was directed to them some eight 
years ago, and I spent some time in the attempt to procure a well-preserved 
specimen of Ranina, of which I liad several ill-preserved examples collected 
by Messrs. C. & E. Hose in Celebes. Eventually, after much fruitless corre- 
spondence with other naturalists, I obtained a fine sj^ecimen of Rardna 
deidata from Professor Kishinoye, of Tokio. It was admirably preserved in 
spirit, and I have to express my best thanks to him for his trouble in pro- 
curing me so excellent an example for study and dissection. 
In addition to Raniti.a, I had examples of the following members of the 
family in the collections of the Oxford University Museum : — 
Notopus dorsipes, Fabr. ; two examples collected by H.M.S. ' Nassau ' in 
the Sulu Sea, 1871-72. 
Raniiioides personatns, White MS., Henderson ; one example from the 
Bay of Bengal, presented to the University bj^ the Calcutta Museum. 
Lyreidus tridentatus, de Haan ; two examples from Port Jackson, presented 
to tiie University by the Trustees of the British Museum of Natural 
History. 
Two examples of a species labelled " Notopus," collected iu the Sulu Sea 
by H.M.S. ' Nassau.' These I am describing as a new genus and 
species under the name of JYotosceles cldmmonis. 
