116 



their respective stations, but the exjjloration of the inter- 

 mediate tract may possibly bring to light a connecting link, 

 ■which may reasonably be expected if albus is a variation due 

 to migration. However, of the many examples I have seen 

 of both, I have not observed any other variation than that of 

 colouration, and then only of trivial amount. P. albus 

 would appear to have been introduced to the South Aus- 

 tralian fauna in comparatively recent times, as it has not yet 

 been found in any of the raised beaches or other Pleistocene 

 deposits which abound throughout the southern coast line of 

 this continent. 



P. mericlionalis and P. laticostatus are certainly closely 

 related species, and may be the direct descendants of a 

 common ancestor ; but, nevertheless, the divergence was prior 

 to the Pliocene Period. The former is fossilised at Ascot 

 Heath, W. Victoria, there associated with some extinct 

 species of mollusca, the percentage number of which indi- 

 cates for the deposit an antiquity equal to that of the 

 Wanganui Series in New Zealand, the lowest horizon at which 

 P. laticostatus is found. No species of Vola is known in 

 earlier deposits in either Australia or New Zealand. 



NOTE UPON THE OCCURRENCE OE THE SYDNEY 

 CRAWFISH, PALINTJRTIS HTJGELLI, ON THE 



COAST OE TASMANIA. 



By W. Saville-Kent, E.L.S., E.Z.S., Superintendent 

 and Inspector of Fisheries, Tasmania. 



A few weeks since one of the fishmongers of the city, Mr. 

 Jones, of Collins -street, presented me with the specimen of 

 crawfish which I now exhibit and that was taken in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Schouten Islands. I am informed by the 

 fishermen that they have not unfrequently captured similar 

 specimens, but that thinking from their colour, dull brown, or 

 olive green, there was something wrong with them, they have 

 usually thrown them overboard. A very superficial examina- 

 tion sufficed to show how widely it differed from the common 

 Tasmanian form Palinurus Edwardsi, and the chief between 

 the two distinctions I will briefly enumerate. The body 

 shield or carnpace is covered with even rows of smooth, sharp- 

 pointed conical spines in place of the depressed hispid spines 

 characteristic of our market species. The cervical and 

 branchio-cardiac grooves are not conspicuously developed, but 

 at the same time there is a deep sulcus immediately in front of 

 the posterior margin. The beak or rostrum terminates in a 

 very long and sharp projecting median spine, instead of with 

 a short turned-up one as found in the Tasmanian crawfish. 



