11 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
Histoire naturelle des Crustaces ; and may thus facilitate the preparation, at some future 
time, of a Catalogue of the Brachyura, a work much needed by all students of the higher 
Crustacea. 
The collection itself was well suited to the preparation of a memoir of this kind, 
on account of the relatively large number of littoral and shallow-water for ms 
represented in it from nearly all parts of the globe, the sorting, determining and 
incorporation of which with the collection of the Museum occupied much more of the 
time which was originally allotted to me for the preparation of the Report than was 
anticipated, and although this time was generously extended by Mr. John Murray, and 
no limitations whatever placed upon me in the performance of my task by the authorities 
of the British Museum, yet in its accomplishment I am conscious of having fallen far 
short of what might have been effected, on account of the weakness of my health, and the 
necessary duties which fell upon me as the assistant (until quite recently) in charge of the 
collection of Crustacea in that Institution. 
With regard to the collection itself, as I have elsewhere noted, 1 the groups richest in 
new genera and species are the Oxyrhyncha (Maioidea) and' Oxystomata (Leucosoidea), 
and to these belong most of the new forms collected at depths exceeding 100 fathoms. No 
Brachyurous crab occurs in those deepest abysses of the ocean (exceeding 2000 fathoms), 
where the Challenger dredgings have shown the lower forms of animal life may occur, 
and but very few at depths exceeding 500 fathoms. The localities furnishing the 
greatest proportion of new and interesting types are stations at, among, or near the 
Islands of the Malaysian Archipelago ; e.g., at the Philippine Islands (Station 210), at 
the Ki Islands (Station 192), at the Admiralty Islands (Station 219), and also at the 
Fij is (Station 173). Some interesting types were also taken on the Agulhas Bank off 
the South African coast (Station 142). For further details, I may refer to the List of 
Stations, and that indicating the bathymetrical distribution of the species. 
As regards the geographical distribution of the species, a large number of the littoral 
and shallow- water species are widely distributed Atlantic or Indo-Pacific forms. Of the 
new species collected in deeper water, many, of course, are known from but a single 
locality, but instances are not wanting to show that of the species inhabiting deeper water 
some may also prove to have a wide geographical range ; such are — Lispognathus 
thomsoni (Norman), and Ebalia tuberculosa, A. Milne Edwards. From a geographical 
point of view, the collection is interesting, also, as furnishing indications of the 
Crustacean fauna of localities hitherto rarely visited or unexplored by the carcinologist. 
I may instance the island of Fernando Noronha, where nine species were taken in shallow 
water, of which two are apparently undescribed. Also the range of some well-known 
species has been shown to be more extended than was hitherto known, as, e.g., 
Geocarcinus lagostoma, Milne Edwards. 
1 Narr. Chall. Exp., vol. i. part ii. p. 585, 1885. 
