1899.] A. Alcock — New and Bare Species of Crustacea. 117 



Anderson, I. M. S., who was Surgeon-Naturalist on the " Investigator " 

 from 1893 to 1899, and who discovered the species and first noticed the 

 peculiar nature of its protective covering. 



It will be figured in full detail in the Illustrations of the Zoology of 

 the Investigator. 



§ 2. On a new species of Crab of the genus Domecia of the sub- 

 famihj Eripliiinae, of the family Xanthid^. 



So far as I know, the genus Domecia has hitherfo been represented 

 in collections by a single species, B. hispida Ejdoux and Souleyet, 

 which was first discovered off the Sandwich Islands and has since been 

 found to have a very remarkable distribution in shallow water, 

 having been taken on the reefs of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean 

 Sea, in the Andaman Sea, and in several parts of the tropical Indo- 

 Pacific, from Java and the Liu Kiu Islands on the west to Tahiti on the 

 east. 



In my . Materials for a Carcinological Fauna of India, pt. 3, p. 465 

 (Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, Yol. LXVIlf . pt. 2, 1898, p. 230) four speci- 

 mens of Domecia hispida are recorded from the Andaman Islands 

 (Little Andaman and the Coco islets), and I have now to record the 

 recent capture, again by the " Investigator," of three more very fine 

 specimens from the same locality, as well as of an entirely new species 

 of the same genus. 



This new species differs from its sole congener D. hispida in the 

 following characters : — 



(1) the carapace, chelipeds, and legs are much less hairy and spiny : 



(2) the orbital margin is smooth or only finely and obscurely crenu- 

 late : 



(3) the exposed surface of the curious merus of the external 

 maxillipeds is perfectly smooth : 



(4) the coloration is different : 



(5) the size is considerably less. 



Domecia glabra, n. sp. 



Carapace about three-quarters as long as broad, contracted poster- 

 iorly, flat, with no trace of regions and with only four distinct spines on 

 its surface, — namely two, one behind the other, on either branchial 

 region, near the antero-lateral border. [There is also a row of tiny 

 spinules, visible only with a strong lens, immediately behind the fron- 

 tal margin]. The surface of the carapace is free from hairs. 



