144 MR. GEOFFREY SMITH OX THE 



only feature that recalled the Shrew being the long, cyliuclrical, 

 twitching snout. They were also quite like rodents in their 

 quadrupedal gait, the ground being traversed by the ordinary 

 running action or by lightning-like leaps from point to point. 

 They did not raise their fore-quarters from the ground more 

 frequently than is the custom with typical rodents, and were 

 never seen to hop on the hind legs alone, like Jerboas and 

 Kangaroos, as they have been declared to do in some natural 

 histories. 



In appearance the two examples of Macroscelicles proboscideus 

 differed considerably from the one representative of ElfiphantHlu,s 

 rapestris. In the former the eyes were smaller and the ear-s 

 more widely separated and more concealed in the hair of the 

 sides of the head. In Ulephantidus rupestris there was a 

 conspicuous light ring round the large eye, the ears were 

 more erect, and. separated by a much narrower space on the top 

 of the head. It was noticeable, too, that, whereas the Rock 

 Elephant-Shrew lay hidden beneath a heap of hay during the 

 daytime, the two Common Elephant-Shrews preferred to huddle 

 together in the open part of the cage, evincing a dislike to push 

 beneath the hay and refusing to remain under it when it was 

 placed over them. The differences between the living animals, 

 indeed, qviite bore out the view, based upon the structure of the 

 skull, that the two species belonged to different genera. 



PAPERS. 



10. The Freshwater Crayfishes of Australia. 

 By Geoffrey Smith, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford*. 



[Receivod October 20, 1911 : Read November 21, 1911.] 

 (Plates XlV.-XXVII.t and Text-figure 18.) 



I. Introduction. 



The study of Freshwater Crayfishes has been distinguished 

 by the labours of Huxley ; the detailed work of Ortman and 

 Faxon has made us acquainted with the North- American species 

 of Astacus and Cambarus, and Faxon has reduced the South- 

 American genus Parastacus and the New Zealand Faranephrops to 

 order, but what Huxley wrote in 1879 concerning the Australian 

 Crayfishes, "that their nomenclature requires thorough revision," 

 is almost as true to-day as thirty years ago. 



The following memoir does not pretend to be an exhaustive 

 monograph of the anatomy or of the systematic classification of 

 the Australian Crayfishes, but by publishing the series of accurate 



* Commnnicat-efl by tbe Secretary. 



-]• Fur cxjfbiiuitioii of tbe J'lates see pp. 170-171. 



