113 



whicli is the case in C. intermedia. The failure of the principal point of 

 difference between the species necessitates their union under one name. 

 I therefore retain panamensis, and reduce intermedia to the status of a 

 synonym. 



The color is better defined in the recent specimen. The external sur- 

 face of the larger hand is brown, except at the superior margin and at 

 the posterior inferior angle; the upper half of the external surface of 

 the carpus, both sides, of the same color as the hand ; the lower half 

 uncolored, or slightly stained with orange; a large spot of orange on 

 the anterior, truncated surface of the arm. The fourth article of the 

 posterior legs is marked in the same manner as the carpus, with the 

 addition of a deep line of purple at the lower edge of the brown, which 

 extends from the center of the article to its articulation with the third 

 article; a brownish, or purplish, spot at the base of the fifth article. This 

 spot is wanting on the last leg of the left side. The third joint of the 

 last pair is purplish ; the tarsi brownish-orange. The carapace ante- 

 riorly purplish; two patches of the same color posteriorly on each side. 

 The peduncles of the eye a deep buff. 



Total length of the carapace 1.00 inch. 



BIRGUS LATEO, Leach. 



Birgus latro, Leach, Trans. Linn. Soc, xii — M. Edwards, Hist. Nat. des Crust., ii, 246; 

 Atlas du Ei^gne Anim. de Cuv., pi. 43, f. 1,— QuOY & Gaimard, Voy. de 

 rUranie, pi. 80.— Dana, U. S. Espl. Exped. Crust., i, 474, pi. 30, f. 5.— Stimp- 

 SON, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila.pl858, s, 232.— Darwin, Naturalist's Voyage 

 Around the World, 462. 



Cancer latro, Herbst, Krabben una Krebse, ii, 34, pi. 24. 



Cancer crementatus, Eumphius, Mus., pi. 4. — Seba, iii, pi. 21, figs. 1 et 2. 



Locality: Washington, or New York Island, Fanning Group. Com- 

 mon. Confined to this one island of the group. At one time this giant 

 land-crab was supposed to be restricted to a single group of islands in 

 the Pacific, south of the equator; in recent times, however, its habitat 

 has been widely extended, so that there is hardly a group, either north 

 or south of the equator, where it is not found. They live in holes in 

 the ground; and they line the bottoms of their burrowswith the fine 

 fibers of the cocoanut-husk. The unwary native, in seeking to rob the 

 crab of its soft bed, occasionally finds his fingers imprisoned in its vise- 

 like grip. It is interesting to know that in such an emergency a gentle 

 titillation of the under soft iDarts of the body will cause it to immedi- 

 ately loose its hold. So tenacious is their grasp that I have seen them 



