OCR Text |
Show 62 CRUSTACEA. with prickles, and armed in front with stout, projecting, · and mor• or less numerous spines or teeth. Its colour, as also that of the tail consists of an agreeable mixture of red, green, and yellow. The tai frequently presents transverse bands or spots, sometimes ocellated arranged in regular ser·ies. Their flesh, that of the females particu. Jarly, before and after the spawning season, is highly este~med. In the species taken on the coast of France, and probably m others, the extremity of the penultimate joint of the two posterior feet of the female is provided with a tooth or spur peculiar to the sex. The same observation applies to the Scyllari. PalinurUB quadricornis, Fab.; .flstacus elepltas, Herbst., xxix, 1; Leach, Malac. Br•it., xxx, or the Langouste commune of the French, is sometimes half a metre in length, and when loaded with ova weighs from twelve to fourteen pounds. The shell is spinous and downy, with two stout teeth notched beneath, be. fore the eyes. The superior surface of the body is of a greenish or reddish brown; the tail is spotted and dotted with yellowish, and its segments are marked by a transverse sulcus interrupted in the middle, its lateral edges forming a dentated angle. The feet are picked in with red and yellowish. It inhabits the coasts of France, that of the Mediterranean in particular. It is found fossil in Italy( 1 ). The third section, that of the AsTAOINI, Latr., is distinguished from the preceding by the form of the two anterior feet, and fre· quently by that of the two following pairs, which terminate in a forceps with two blades, or a didactyle hand. In some, the last two, or four, are much smaller than those which precede them, therein approaching the Anomala; but the fan-like fin of the extremity of their tail and other characters remove them from that section. The thorax is narrow anteriorly, and the front projects in a pointed snout or rostrum. Some of them,-Galatlwclere, Leach, as well as the preceding Ma· croUI·a, have four pairs of false feet; the mediate antennce flexed like ( 1) M. Desmarest, Hi st. Nat. des Crust. Foss., p. 132, speaks of two other fossil species, the second of which, however, may probably belong to the subgenus As· taceus properly so called, and approach the .11.. norwegicus of Fabricius. For the other living species, see Ann. du M:us. d'Hist. Nat., t. ill, p. 391, etscq.; the article Palinure, Encyc. Method., and its Atlas d'Hist. Nat.; that of Langoustt, Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., Ed. II, and the same in the work of Desmarest on the Crustacea. As respects the nervous system of the species that inhabits the French coast, see Audouin and Edwards, op. cit.; according to them, all the thoracic gan· glions are as if soldered together, end to end. DECAPODA. 63 an elbow, with the two filaments representing the stem, are man~festly shorter than their peduncle. That of the lateral antennz lS er provided with a lamina in the form of a scale. The two ante· nev 1 d h' h · f uently • 01• feet alone terminate in a didacty e han , w tc IS req . :~uch flattened. The last segment of the tail is bilobate, at least m most of them. . ~ At the head of this division come those whose( 1) postel'lor e~t are much smaller and thinner than the preceding ones; they are fillform, bent up, and useless in locomotion. In the GALA THEA, Fa b. The tail is extended, the thorax nearly ovoid or oblong, the mediate antennre salient, and the forceps elongated. The superior surface of the body is usually deeply incised or striate, spinous and ciliate. The most remarkable species of the European seas are the Ga/athea rugosa, Fab.; Leo, Randel., ~ist. des.' Poiss., p. 390; Penn. Brit. Zool., IV, xiii; Leach, Malac. Brn., XXIX, the claws of which are long and cylindrical, the mandibles edentate and that has three long spines in the middle of the front, dire~ted forwards, and ten similar and equally projecting ones on the tail, six on the second segment, and four on the follow-ing one(2). Galathea strigosa; Cancer strigosus, L., Herbst., XXVI, 2;. Pennt. Brit. Zool. IV, xiv; Leach, Malac. Brit., XXVIII, B. Similar as respects the mandibles, to the pt·ecediug species, but having' a projection in front, or a rostrum, with four teeth on each side, and an eighth at the end; the claws are .large, but neither very long nor linear, and very spinous, as IS a great part of the following feet. This last character distinguishes it ft·om a third species, also found in European seas, the Galathea squamifera, Leach., Malac. Brit., XXVIII, B. This learned entomologist has made a peculiar genus, GRIMOTEA, of the Galathea gregaria of Fabricius. The second joint of the intermediate antennre terminates in a club, and the three last external foot-jaws are foliaceous. It is of a red colour, and was discov~red by Sir Joseph Banks in his voyage round the world. It collected m such (1) According to a verbal communication from Doctor Leach, in the Gaalthea amplectens, Fab., it is not only the two posterior . feet which nre smaller, but the penultimate likewise. This species would then form a separate genus: ' (2) This species forms the genus MuNIDA, Leach. See Desmar., Cons1der., ~age 191. The latter is mistaken however in attributing to the former the cred1t of having been the first to discover the identity of this species with the lion of n.ondelet. See my Hist. Gener. des Crust. et des Insectes., t. VI, p.198. |