igo8.] Records of the Indian Museum. 219 



Port Canning, the carapace of which is 23 mm. long. The anterior 

 margin of the front is straight or very sHghtly concave. The speci- 

 mens gathered at Dhappa are the youngest of all, the carapace of 

 the smallest being hardly 4 mm. long. 



5. Metaplax dcntipes (Heller). 



Helice denti pes, HeWer, Crustaceen der Novara-Reise, 1865, p. 62, 

 pi. V, fig. 5. 



Metaplax dentipes, de Man, in Journal Linnean Soc, xxii, 

 1888, p. 162, pi. xi, figs. 1—3 ; Alcock, I.e., 1899, p. 433. 



A male and a female, both adult, from brackish water pools 

 at Port Canning. 



The carapace of the male is 2y$ mm. broad and 20 mm. 

 long, the epistome excluded. The infraorbital ridge consists of 

 23 lobules, that are quite typical. The penultimate segment of 

 the abdomen is 3*5 mm. long, its anterior margin is 3"25 mm. broad, 

 the posterior 5 mm., whereas the antepenultimate joint is 3 mm. 

 long and the terminal joint as much. 



The musical crest does not reach to the middle of the anterior 

 margin of the arm and does not extend as far as the ischium ; in a 

 3^ounger male from the Mergui Archipelago, lying before me, the 

 crest is placed on the middle third of the anterior margin, conform- 

 ably with my description of 1888 ; in this male the carapace is 19 mm. 

 broad and I3"5 mm. long. The chelipedes of this male from Port 

 Canning are equal, the chelae are 26 mm. long, the palm t6'5 mm, 

 long and I0"5 mm. high ; the length of the palm is in proportion to 

 its height as 13 : 8*3, according to my paper of 1888 this proportion 

 should be 13 : 9^ for Met. dentipes and 13 : 8 for Met. distiuctus, 

 H. M. Bdw. The chelse closel}^ resemble, indeed, those of the latter 

 species (de Man, I.e., pi. 10, fig. 9), as regards their shape and the 

 serrations of the fingers. 



The carapace of the female is 22 mm. broad and 16*5 mm. long, 

 the infraorbital ridge consists of 23 lobules and hardly reaches beyond 

 the lower margin of the orbits. The chelipedes are equal, 21 mm. 

 long, almost as long as the carapace is broad ; the two lower mar- 

 gins of the arm are finely denticulate, the outer surface granular, 

 the upper margin hairy. Upper surface of the wrist minutely granu- 

 lar ; chelae 10 mm. long, about three times as long as high, fingers 

 a little longer than the palm, the outer surface of which is minutely 

 granular. In my work on the Crustacea collected by Capt. Storm 

 I have pointed out that the ambulatory legs of Met. elegans, de 

 M., are slenderer in the male than in the female {Zoolog. Jahrb. 

 (Spengel), viii, Abth. f. Syst. 1895, p. 596) ; the same dift'erence is 

 presented by the male and female of Met. dentipes, the ambu- 

 latory legs being much slenderer in the male than in the female. So, 

 e.g., are the legs of the penultimate pair of the male 56 mm. long, 

 those of the female 41 mm., about twice as long as the carapace 

 is broad ; the meropodites of these legs are, in the male, 20 mm. 

 long and 5"3 mm. broad; in the female, however, I4'5 mm. long 



