INTRODUCTION. 
XhE first indication of the Crustacea which presented itself during the late Voyage of 
H.M.S. Samarang, occurred on the 10th of June, 1843, as we slowly sailed through 
the Straits of Sunda, the surface of which being nearly calm, was swarming with myriads of 
Stomapodons, such as the transparent Erichthus and Alima, together with several other 
genera, as Phrmima, Nerocila, and Splmroma. These were swimming apparently in 
dense masses near the surface, carried bodily on by the current setting through the Straits, 
and darting about among themselves. The Nerocila and Sphceroma rapidly revolve in the 
water and swim in every direction, while Erichthus, Alima, and Phronima propel themselves 
more steadily onwards by repeated flexion and extension of the abdomen. 
While the trawl supplied us with specimens of these, the employment of the dredge 
furnished us with several forms of Podosomatous spider-like Crustaceans, which occur, 
however, most frequently and in the greatest number among coral barriers surrounding 
islands, where they are found concealed among the coral branches and in the holes ot 
madrepores. I have also taken them from tubular sponges and even from among the spines 
of the larger Echinoderms. We found them in large numbers in the Mindoro Sea, in twenty 
fathoms water and sandy bottom, on which occasion they were found entangled in huge 
bunches of a species of pinnatiferous keratophyte. Mr. Adam White, in the Proceedings 
of the Zoological Society, has described two new species of the genus Nymphon obtained in 
this manner, under the names of Nymphon Johnstoniamm and Nymphon Phasma } These 
Crustaceans are very slow and languid in their progression, moving their slender articulations 
but feebly. In the Straits, we likewise obtained by the dredge several fine specimens of the 
1 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 2nd Ser. vol. i. p. 227. 
a 
