No. 636] SHORT EB ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION 83 



three thousand individuals that were collected only a few showed 

 the narrow abdomen concerning which Miss Rathbun raises an 

 interesting question. These rare individuals, I ventured to sug- 

 gest, with some hesitation and with considerable reservations, 

 might be called intersexes, because th€ variation in question was 

 in the direction of a character peculiar to the opposite sex. 

 Miss Rathbun states that my argument that "they are not 

 juvenile . . . unsupported, is fallacious." Again I can only 

 repeat what was said in my paper, that I examined a very large 

 number of individuals, many of which were of about the same 

 size as the variations in question, some of which were even 

 smaller, and others somewhat larger, and in none of the young 

 females (except in those recorded as exceptions) did I find 

 the abdomen narrow. 



May I also recall that I specifically referred to the case of the 

 blue crab in which the abdomen of the juvenile female is narrow, 

 so this condition was known to me, both from the literature and 

 from personal examination, although the reader might gain the 

 opposite opinion from Miss Rathbun 's comments. 



It is rather strange also that Miss Rathbun neglects to point 

 out that these small crabs with narrow abdomen were stated 

 in my paper to show either a change towards maleness or pos- 

 sibly a retention of the juvenile condition. It is quite possible, 

 of course, that the narrowness of the abdomen of the exceptional 

 individuals might be interpreted as a variation in the direction 

 of ilip juvenile stage found in other species; but it is certainly 

 3 lot com moil sta?e through which crabs of this size pass. 

 "Will tlior tlie juvenile interpretation has any advantage over the 

 alternative one tliat I provisionally suggested can only be 

 settled -^vhen we htive found out to what this exceptional condi- 

 tion in the fiddler crab is due. My paper was written more 

 with the intention of calling attention to a new and verv^ in- 

 teresting ^et of variations in these crabs (as the title indicates) 

 than with the intention of trying to determine what the definition 

 ot intersexes shall include; for, as I said, ''It seems to me not 

 worth while at present to attempt to classify such material nntil 

 we have learned more about it." 



T. II. MORGAX 



1 Fig. 48', page 225, line 3, should be Fig. 5B'. Fig. 4P", page 225, line 

 13, should be Fig. 5C". Fig. A, B, C, B, page 225, line next to bottom, 

 should be Fig. 5 A, B, C, D. 



