A MOVING MUSEUM 111 



InacliinEe, hitlierto represented only by types from Eastern 

 America.' Among those types the nearest to Plaiymaia 

 is supposed to be Euprognatha, Stimpson, 1870. In re- 

 gard to Euprognatha rastellifera, Professor S. I. Smith 

 says : ' This is apparently by far the most abundant of all 

 the Brachyura along our whole eastern coast south of 

 Cape Cod — in the belt from 50 to 200 fathoms depth. 

 In the U.S. Fish Commission dredgings off Martha's 

 Vineyard, many thousands of specimens were often taken 

 at a single haul of the trawl.' 



Family 2. — Maiidce. 



The eyes are retractile within the orbits, which are 

 distinctly defined, but often more or less incomplete below 

 or marked with open fissures in their upper and lower 

 margins. The basal joint of the second antennae is always 

 more or less enlarged. The family includes about thirty 

 genera, three of which are known in British localities. 



Maia, Lamarck, 1801, is a genus well known rather to 

 the south than the north of Great Britain in the species 

 Maia squinado (Herbst). It is a large, eatable, and, in the 

 south-west of England, an extremely abundant species. 

 Its great inflated carapace, covered with prickles and fur, 

 gives it a ready place in the memory when once it has been 

 noticed. A pretty little amphipod, called Iscea Montagui, 

 Milne-Edwards, with the sixth joint of its legs much 

 widened, seems to have been specially adapted for ranging 

 about this hirsute and prickly crab, the only place in which 

 it is found. The convenience of the residence may be in- 

 ferred from the fact, previously noticed, that from time to 

 time a score of other species of Amphipoda find it their 

 interest to occupy the same station. The crab, according 

 to Herbst, is known as Squinado in Provence. In Corn- 

 wall it is called the Corwich, and Bell was told that in 

 those parts several dozens could be had for sixpence. But 

 even this does not give so ample an idea of its abundance 

 as is conveyed by Olivi in his ' Adriatic Zoology ' of a 

 hundred years ago. He declares that in summer the crabs 



