66 A HISTORY OF RECENT CRUSTACEA 



the other hand, complaints are made by English writers of 

 the mischief which it does to fish already captured, and 

 Dr. Hoek accuses it of the truly detestable crime of in- 

 vading the oyster beds, and eating the young oysters while 

 their shells are still soft and easy to break. In attacking 

 the adults, it is itself sometimes caught by the snapping 

 down of the powerfully hinged valves. 



The only other species of this genus known is the 

 American GLvrcinus granulatus (Say), and even this may 

 not be really distinct from the European form. 



Port anus, Fabricius, 1798, has the last two joints of 

 the fifth legs dilated and compressed, and the last joint 

 ovate. It is by this formation that many of the Portu- 

 nidse are qualified as swimming crabs. In the Caribbean 

 Sea, and among the gulf weed in the tropical Atlantic, 

 Mr. Gosse observed them shooting through the water 

 almost like a fish, ' with the feet on the side that happens 

 to be the front all tucked close up, and those on the oppo- 

 site side stretched away behind, so as to hold no water, as 

 a seaman would say, and thus offer no impediment to the 

 way.' Our British species swim with less facility, and are 

 often calleA fiddler crabs, because, as Mr. Gosse explains, 'the 

 see-saw motion of the bent and flattened joints of the oav- 

 feet is so much like that of a fiddler's elbow.' The beauti- 

 ful Velvet Crab, Portunus fvher (Linn.), called in the 

 Channel Islands the Lady Crab, is for ordinary purposes 

 sufficiently described by Bell in the ' British Stalk-eyed 

 Crustacea,' together with six other species of the genus 

 that have been obtained in the waters of Great Britain, 

 namely depurator (Linn.), corrugatus (Pennant), arcuatiis 

 and pusillus. Leach, holsatus. Fabricius, and its near ally 

 marmoreus. Leach. To these Canon Norman has added 

 Portunus tuberculatus, Roux, from the Shetland Isles. He 

 remarks on the singularity of the circumstance that this 

 and many other southern forms should be found in the 

 deep Shetland waters, though they are not known from 

 localities between those waters and the Mediterranean. 



Portumnus, Leach, 1814, both by name and structure, 

 closely approaches the preceding genus, but it has the 



