141 



A HISTORY OF RECENT CRUSTACEA 



that of the entire leg. These claws are very thin, and are 

 serrated with the finest teeth, directed backwards : their 

 curved extremities are flattened, and on this part five most 

 minute cups are placed which seem to act in the same 

 manner as the suckers on the arms of the cuttle-fish. As 

 the animal lives in the open sea, and probably wants a 

 place of rest, I suppose this beautiful and most anomalous 

 structure is adapted to take hold of floating marine 

 animals.' 



Lyreidus, de Haan, 1841, has the eye-stalks short and 

 the orbits are ill-defined, which is contrary to the family 

 character. The genus was originally instituted for Lyrei- 

 dnis tridentatus, the lyre-shaped crab of Japan. That 

 species has been traced southwards to Australia ; another 

 species, Lyreidus Bairdi, S. I. Smith, has been found off 

 the east coast of the United States. 



Zanclifer, Henderson, 1888, has the eyes rudimentary, 

 with corneas of small size though 

 pigmented, on short peduncles, 

 in ill-defined orbits. The first 

 antennse are small, completely 

 concealed by the massive pedun- 

 cles of the second pair, which meet 

 together in the middle line. The 

 name means sickle-bearing, in 

 allusion to the uncinate character 

 of the terminal joint in the walk- 

 ing-legs. There is at present only 

 one species, Zanclifer caribencis 

 (de Freminville), and of this only 

 two specimens are known. One 

 of these, the figure of which is 

 here reproduced, was obtained, by 

 the Challenger off the coast of Brazil, the other was taken 

 more than forty years earlier by M. de Freminville in the 

 Caribbean Sea. The French captain described it under 

 the name of Eryon ca/ribensis, thus referring it to a fossil 

 genus with which it has nothing to do, and making im- 

 portant mistakes in the descriptioH which were pointed 



Fig. 12. — Zandifei caribensis (de 

 Freminville) [Henderson]. 



