OCR Text |
Show 536 REV. T. R. R. STEBBING ON CRUSTACEANS [May 22, 1874. Eupagurus comptus, Miers, Zool. Erebus and Terror, Crustacea, p. 3, pi. 2. tigs. 5, 5 a (Pagurus comptus on plate). 1881. Eupagurus comptus, and var. latimanus, Miers, Pr. Zool. Soc. Lond. p. 72. 1888. Eupagurus comptus, var. jugosa, Henderson, ' Challenger' Anomura, Eeports, vol. xxvii. p. 67, pi. 7. fig. 2. 1892. Eupagurus comptus, Ortmann, Zool. Jahrb. vol. vi. p. 298. The Pagurus forceps of Milne-Edwards, to which this species is doubtfully referred by Cunningham, was originally described from Chile. Miers, in rejecting Cunningham's reference, says : " E. forceps, however, appears to be distinguished by the much shorter, broader, larger hand, and the much shorter and less slender fingers of the left anterior leg." Now, although Miers is probably right in his rejection of Cunningham's reference, it is difficult to understand the reasons he assigns for it. Milne-Edwards in his description of forceps, says that the right cheliped is very large, with the carpus much larger than the hand, and that the left cheliped has the fingers slender, long, and pointed, the movable finger almost filiform. In Eu. comptus the wrist of the right cheliped is not much larger than the hand, and the fingers of the left cheliped would have to be very thin to be more slender than those which are almost filiform. Milne-Edwards describes the colour of his species as reddish violet, with the feet ringed ; White describes his as " Whitish, the antennae ringed with red, the legs with three or four broad red bands." The specimen here referred to Eu. comptus, as preserved in formalin, retains in many parts a violet hue, speckled with reddish points and lines, the distal half of the first antennae is orange-coloured, the flagella of the second antennae are brightly annulated with red and white, and the two pairs of walking-legs have three broad bands of brown, the uppermost bluish, the other two reddish. The rostral point is well marked. The eye-stalks are slender. The ophthalmic scales are separated by no very wide interval. Tbe flagella of the second antennas, though not densely setuli-ferous, have numerous setules of various lengths. In the right cheliped the wrist is nearly or quite as broad and as long as the hand, the outer surface broadly triangular, a little convex, with sharp, granular or serrate margins, the lower surface two-sided; the hand and finger together form a broad oval, the outer edges of the fingers sharply serrate, the outer margin of the hand above the movable finger thickened, with two edges, meeting a slight expansion, rounded and serrate, of the wrist; the outer surface of the hand having a ridge from the movable finger to the wrist. In the 'Voyage of the Erebus and Terror' some very rough figures are given of the type, the figures probably much older than the date of publication. They are left unexplained by Miers. They show a movable finger much shorter than the immovable one, which is produced to a sharp point. If they faithfully represent an actual specimen, the probability is that it was a deformed one. In the left cheliped, which is much smaller than the right, |