82 



A CORNISH FAUNA. 



extending as far as the Shetland s from whence I have received 

 it, the specimens that have been dredged in the colder regions are 

 very small, and the inhabitants of very deep water. 



Galathea digtdistans. — Spence Bate, Report on the South Devon 

 and Cornwall Marine Fauna Flora ; Brit. Assoc. Report, 1867, 

 p. 277 and 279. 



In that report the author says, " among the Gralathea that we 

 have taken on our coast, and which embrace all that have been 

 previously known as British, is one that we think must be 

 accepted as not having been previously described. The largest 

 specimen measuring from the extremity of the tail to that of the 

 extended hands is little more than two inches, of which the 

 animal itself, measuring from the extremity of the rostrum to 

 that of the tail, is litttle more than one inch. This species differs 

 from either of the others in having the large pair of chelate 

 pereiopoda (hands) flat and broad, the fingers much curved, very 

 distant, and meeting only at their apex when closed, furnished 

 on the inside with a considerable brush of hairs, and armed near 

 the base of the moveable finger with a prominent tubercle or 

 tooth, but which appears to be of little importance, since it is not 

 able to impinge against the opposite finger. 



We have sometimes thought that this specimen may only be an 

 extreme form of the male of Galathea squamifera ; but the 

 armature of the surface of the hands, which is generally a safe 

 guide to specific characters, has a distinct variation. In G. 

 squamifera the arms are covered generally with a series of curved 

 scale-like tuberculations, the anterior margin of which is divided 

 into a series of bead-like elevations, while in the most typical 

 parts such as on the surface of the meros and carpus the central 

 prominence is elevated to a point, and the whole of the tubercular 

 ridge is crowned by a row of short hairs, so minute that they are 

 not perceptible except by the assistance of a lens. These tuber- 

 culations are closely packed and regular. 



In this species the tuberculations are less prominent and 

 defined, the margins of which can only be perceived to be at all 

 baccated by careful arrangement of light, while the cilia, being 

 far less nmmerous, are yet more conspicuous under the lens." 



Two specimens only have been taken on stony bottom, in 30 

 fathoms of water. 



