2 Memoirs of the Indian Museum. [Voi,. IV, 



published, very considerable additions have been made, largely owing to the pains- 

 taking efforts of succeeding Surgeon-Naturalists on the R.I.M.S.S. 'Investigator.' 



As may be imagined the task of writing an account of this collection, already 

 to a large extent arranged and classified by Wood-Mason, was one of no especial 

 difficulty : the manuscript names with which many of the species were supplied have 

 been a fruitful source of guidance. It was my original intention to restrict the 

 present paper to an account of the Indian species, but it soon became apparent that 

 the collection was sufficiently representative to justify work on more ambitious lines, 

 and I have consequently attempted to give a descriptive catalogue of all adult 

 Stomatopoda from Indo-pacific waters, indicating as far as a study of the literature 

 enables me, the chief points of those species which I have not been able to examine 

 myself. Owing perhaps to their peculiar habits many species of Stomatopoda are 

 so rare that it is only by abstraction from the work of previous writers that a concise 

 account of the forms occurring in a given area can be prepared. 



Under the somewhat loose term " Indo-pacific " I include all localities from Suez 

 and S. Africa to Australia, New Zealand, Oceania and Japan. The Pacific Coast of 

 America is omitted ; for the species of Stomatopoda known from this region show 

 little affinity with those of the area defined above and have, moreover, already 

 been fully dealt with by Bigelow. 



It is not necessary to treat the history of our knowledge of the recent Stomato- 

 poda at any considerable length. H. Milne-Edwards in 1837 gave an account of the 

 few species known in his day, and this was succeeded in 1849 by De Haan's admirable 

 chapter on the Japanese species in Siebold's Fauna Japonica. After the latter work 

 our knowledge did not increase very rapidly ; in 1880 Miers was able to comprise 

 within the limits of two short papers descriptions of all the forms then known and up 

 to the present day this revision has remained the principal work of reference to the 

 Indo-pacific forms. Since 1880 a great number of papers dealing with Stomatopoda 

 have appeared, scattered through numerous scientific periodicals, and among these 

 important contributions to our knowledge of the Indo-pacific species are to be found 

 in the writings of Brooks, de Man, Henderson, Nobili, Hansen, Müller, Borradaile, 

 Tattersall and Fukuda. 



Of publications not dealing directly with Indo-pacific species Bigelow' s valuable 

 systematic account of the American forms (1894) and Giesbrecht's very complete 

 monograph of those found in the Mediterranean (1910) will be found indispensable 

 to all working at this group of Crustacea. 



At the present day the following one hundred and thirty-nine species and varieties 

 of adult Stomatopoda are known. 1 The names of those which have not been found in 

 the Indo-pacific region are printed in italics ; an asterisk (*) indicates that examples 

 have been available for examination and a dagger ( f ) implies that the type specimens 

 have been seen. 



1 Not including Squilla minor, Jurich, and Leptosquilla schmeltzii, A. Milne-Edwards, which are 

 based on very immature specimens. 



