465 
Preliminary Account of the Habits and Structure of the 
Anaspidide, with Remarks on some other Fresh-water 
Crustacea from Tasmama. 
By GEOFFREY W. Smitu, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford. 
‘(Communicated by Professor E. B. Poulton, F.R.S. Received June 10,—Read 
June 25, 1908.) 
[Puate 13.] 
In 1893, Mr. G. M. Thomson* described an interesting Schizopod from a | 
‘small pool near the summit of Mount Wellington, which he named Anaspides 
tasmanie, and pointed out many peculiarities in its organisation, tending to 
‘show the primitive character of the animal. 
Dr. W. J. Calman,} in 1897, revised Thomson’s description and instituted a 
comparison between Anaspides and certain Carboniferous shrimps of Europe 
and North America (Gampsonyx, Paleocaris, etc.), and, in a later paper 
dealing with the classification of the Malacostraca as a whole, this author 
proposes to do away with the order Schizopoda altogether, and to redistribute 
its component families, uniting the Mysidacea with the Amphipoda, Isopoda, 
and Cumacea in a division, Peracarida, placing the Euphausiacea with the 
Decapoda in a division, Eucarida, while Anaspides constitutes a division, 
Syncarida, by itself.t 
The chief distinguishing features of the Peracarida are the incomplete 
nature of the carapace, the presence of a brood pouch in the female, formed 
from oostegites on the thoracic limbs, the elongated heart, the few and simple 
hepatic cceca, filiform spermatozoa, and direct development without compli- 
cated metamorphoses. The Eucarida show the exact converse of these 
characters. 
From what was known of Anaspides, it seemed doubtful if it could be 
placed in either of these sub-classes, since although it was without a carapace, it 
appeared to possess no trace of a brood pouch. Quite recently, Mr. O. A. Sayce§ 
has described a remarkable fresh-water crustacean from the neighbourhood of 
Melbourne, which is evidently closely allied to Anaspides in its general 
structure, but it presents the curious feature of possessing sessile eyes, a 
* ‘Zinn. Soc. Trans.,’ 2nd ser., vol. 6, 1894—97, Part 3, August, 1894, pp. 285—303, 
Plates 24—26. 
+ ‘Roy. Soc. Edin. Trans.,’ vol. 38, Part 4, 1896, pp. 787—802, Plates 1 and 2. 
t ‘Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.,’ 7th ser., vol. 13, 1904, p. 144. 
§ ‘Victorian Naturalist,’ vol. 24, p. 117, 1907. 
Zt Bez 
