OCR Text |
Show 30 CRUSTACEA. ERIPHIA, Lat. Where the lateral antennre are inserted between the ocular cavities and the median antennre; the nearly cordiform shell is truncated poste1•iorly, and the eyes are removed from its anterior angles. The coast of France furnishes a species-Cancer spinifrona, Fab.; Herbst., XI, 65; Desmar., Consider., XIV, 1, which is the Pagurus of Aldrovandus. The sides of its shell are furnished with five teeth, the second and third bifid. The front and claws are spiny; the fingers black. TRAPEZIA, Lat. The Trapezire resemble the Eriphire in the insertion of their late· ral antennre, but th~ir shell is nearly square, depressed, and smooth; the eyes are placed at its anterior angles, and the claws, in compa· ri~on with the other feet, very large. All the species are exotic( 1 ), and inhabit Eastern Seas. The PrLUMNus, Leach, Differs from the two preceding subgenera, in the insertion of the lateral antennre at the internal extremity of the ocular cavities, above the origin of the pedicles of the eyes. The Pilumni, as to the form of the shell, approach nearer to the Crustacea of the second . section, than the other Quadrilntera, and in this respect stand some- !, what ambiguously between the two. As in most of the Arcuata the third joint of their foot-jaw is nearly square or pentagonal. The 'lateral antennre are longer than the ocular pedicles, and have a setaceous stem longer than the peduncle and composed of numerous sm~ll joints. .The tarsi are simply pilose(2). THELPHUsA, Lat.(3) The lateral antennre situated as in the Pilumni, but shorter than the ocular pedicles, composed of but few joints, and with a cylindrico- conical stem hardly longer than its peduncle. The shell is . ( 1) Cancer cymodoce, Herbst., li, 5;-C. rufo-punctatWJ, ld., xlvii, 6;-C. glaber· r'mWJ, Id., xx, 115. See the article Trapezie, Encyc. Methodique. (2) See the article Pilumne, Encyc. Method., and Desmarest, op. cit. p. '111. ( 3) The P_otamopltile8 of the first edition of this work. That name having been ::~.lready applied to a genus of Coleopterous Insects, I have substituted the present one.-See this w.ord in the second edition of the Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. They are the Potamobire, Leach, Potamon, Savigny. DECAPODA. 31 almost shaped· like a truncated heart, and the tarsi are furnished with spinous or dentated ridges. . . . Several species are known, all of wh1ch mhab1t fresh water, but capable, as it would appear, of living at a distance from it for a considerable time. One of them, mentioned by the ancients, is found in the south of Europe, the Levant, and in Egypt; it is the Crabe fluvi~tite, of Belon, Rondelet! and Gesner( 1 ). It is very common m several brooks and various lakes of the craters of the south of Italy; its effigy is obse1·vable on different antique Grecian medals, particularly on those of Sicily. The shell is about two inches in each diameter. It is g1·eyish or yeqowish, as the animal is living or dead, mostly smooth, with little incised rugre and asperities on the anterior sides. The front is transversal, inclined, reflected, and edentated. The claws are rough, with a reddish spot at the extremity of the fingers, which are long, conical, and unequally dentated. The Greek monks eat it raw, and during lent it forms one of the articles of diet used by the Italians. Two naturalists, travellers of the government, prematurely taken from the sciences, Delancle and Leschenault-de-Latour, discovered two other species; one was collected by the first in his travels to the south of Africa, and the other by the second in the mountains of Ceylon . The Cancer senex of Fabricius (Herbst., XL, 5), should, in my opinion, be referred to the same subgenus. It inhabits the East Indies. A species peculiar to America, the Thelphusa serrata, Herbst., X, ii, is proportionably wider and flatter than the others, presenting certain characters which seem to indicate a particular division(2). Other Quadrilatera having, like the preceding ones, the fourth joint of the external foot-jaws inserted in the internal extremity of the previous joint, differ from them in the trapezoidal, transverse and (1} See Olivier Voy., en Egypte, pl. :xxx, ~; and the plates ofNat. Hist., in the great work on that country . (2) See also the subgenus OcYPODE. I have made a new one called TnrcnoDACTYLus, with a fresh-water species from llrazil analogous to the preceding ones, but with an almost square shell, the third joint of the external foot-jaws forming an elongated triangle hooked at the end, and the tarsi covered with a close down. The Graspua te8selatus, of the pl. (cccv, 2) of Nat. Hist., Encyc. Method., is also the type of the new genus MELIA, but one of too little importance to be treated of in detail in a work like this. |