[From the Annals and Magazine of Natural Histoby for 

 March 1886.] 





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The Abyssal Decapod Crustacea of the l Albatross \Dredgings 

 in the North Atlantic *. By Sidney I. Smith. 



The most interesting feature of the Crustacea collected by 

 the ' Albatross ' is the great number of very deep-water or 

 abyssal species of Decapoda obtained in a restricted region of 

 the western North Atlantic. The whole number of species 

 of true Decapoda dredged by the ' Albatross ' is over 130 ; 

 but nearly half of these are from shallow or comparatively 

 shallow water. None of the shallow- water species were taken 

 below 1000 fathoms, and it is perhaps best to limit the 

 abyssal fauna to depths greater than this, although some true 

 deep-water species are excluded by adopting so great a depth. 

 Taking this limit strictly we have 44 abyssal species, as 

 shown in the following : — 



* This article is in the main abstracted from the introductory portion 

 of the author's " Report on the Decapod Crustacea of the 'Albatross' 

 Dredgings off the East Coast of the United States during the Summer 

 and Autumn of 1884," with twenty plates, recently presented to the U.S. 

 Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, by whose permission it is here pub- 

 lished in advance of the Government report. The collections made by 

 the ' Albatross ' in the West-Indian region during the winters of 1884 

 and 1885 are not referred to in this article, which applies exclusively to 

 the region north of Cape Hatteras ; but some of the results of a partial 

 examination of the collections made in the summer of 1885 are included. 



