OCR Text |
Show 1900.] FROM THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. 521 Desmarest he quotes the Museum name of the species, " Hymenosoma Mathaei, Latreille." Like Desmarest he refers to the Ile-de- France as the place of origin, but adds the Bed Sea, because he is able to refer to Euppell. It is indeed reasonable to suppose that Desmarest and Milne-Edwards were describing identically the same specimen. It must be admitted that Desmarest says that it is 6 lines long, while in Milne-Edwards's ' Histoire' it is 4 lines in length. But to those who w^ould lay any overwhelming weight on a discrepancy of that kind, it may be pointed out that Euppell, at the outset of his description of this very species, says " This minute crustacean appears never to overstep a length (Langendurchmesser) of three lines," although at the close he says: " Comparisons in the Paris Museum convinced m e of the identity of the species here described by m e with that which M . Desmarest (Considerations sur les Crustaces, page 163) has published under the same name." It will be remembered that Desmarest gives the length not as three lines but as six. It seems clear that Paulson (Crustacea of the Red Sea, p. 71, 1875) is right in regarding the species described by Desmarest, Euppell, aud Milne-Edwards under the name mathaei (mathei Biippell) as one and the same. Nevertheless, Professor Haswell's suggestion is likely enough to be right with regard to the second account given by Milne- Edwards, in 1853, when he changes Elamena into Elamene, figures parts of a male specimen, which on the earlier occasion he had confessedly not had an opportunity of examining, and introduces into the generic character a tridentate rostrum which is conspicuous by its absence in the figure of his Elamene quoyi. Gen. HALICARCINUS White. 1846. Halicarcinus, White, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 1, vol. xviii p. 178. 1849. Liriopea, Nicolet, Gay's Hist. Chile, Zool. vol. iii. p. 158. 1852. Halicarcinus, Dana, U S . Expl. Exp. vol. xiii. Crust! pt. i. p. 379. 1853. Halicarcinus, Milne-Edwards, Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 3, vol. xx. p. 222. 1876. Halicarcinus, Miers, Catal. Crust. N e w Zealand, p. 49. 1877. Halicarcinus, Targioni-Tozzetti, Crost. della Magenta, p. 172. 1882. Hymenosoma (part), Haswell, Catal. Australian Malaco-straca, p. 114. 1886. Halicarcinus, Miers, 'Challenger' Brachyura, Eeports, vol. xvii. p. 280. White in 1846 placed this genus in the family Myctiridae, as a subgenus distinguished from Hymenosoma " by the great size of the thickened fore-feet, by the carapace being generally wider than long, and having the edge of the strongly depressed upper surface with two teeth or angles on each side. The four last pairs of legs are cylindrical and free from hairs, while the claws are considerably |