Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/298

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

A HISTORY OF SUSSEX in 1897, from examination of the type specimen, was enabled to identify the longirostris of Fabricius with M. rostrata, thereby reinstating Leach's tenuirostris as a valid specific name. In this family two species, Macropodia egyptia (Milne-Edwards) and Achceus cranchii. Leach, have been added to the fauna of the county by Mr. Guermonprez. The former is actually reported as abundant, although in Bell's British Stalk-eyed Crustacea it is not even mentioned. It has however been named by more recent writers as occurring in south British waters. From the other two species of the same genus M. egyptia can be separated by the rostrum, which is nearly as long as the peduncle of the second antennae, while in M. rostrata it is much shorter, and in M. tenuirostris decidedly longer than that peduncle. Milne- Edwards remarks that in M. egyptia the two anterior tubercles of the gastric region of the carapace nearly touch one another.* These little tubercles are very distinctly shown in Savigny's figure of the species,^ and are quite clear in the male but not in the female specimen which Mr. Guermonprez has kindly sent me from the shore at Felpham. Of the little Achceus cranchii. Leach, he has met with only one specimen in the course of his researches at Bognor. It represents a genus very closely allied to Macropodia. E. J. Miers says : ' It is in fact only distinguished from it by the absence of rostral spines, the rostrum in Achceus being composed merely of two small acute or subacute lobes.' He further points out that the fourth joint of the outer maxillipeds in certain species, and among them in the typical A. cranchii^ is shorter than in Macropodia^ and distally truncated.* The species of Inachus are at first sight not very different from those of Macropodia, but in the latter the bifid rostrum is long and has its two horns contiguous and the eyes are not retractile, whereas in Inachus the apices of the short rostrum are separate, and the eyes can be drawn back into the shelter of the hinder part of the orbit. /. dorsettensis (Pennant) was obtained by Bell at Hastings.* /. dorynchus. Leach, a less globose species than the preceding, was found by Hailstone at Hastings and by Bell at Hastings and Bognor. As to the latter collecting place Bell remarks that several small specimens, taken among the refuse of prawn and lobster pots, were of a lighter colour than most which he had observed from other localities, and this he thinks may have arisen from their being young. ° /. leptochirus. Leach, the largest of the three, has relatively the slenderest chelipeds, to which allusion is made in the specific name, meaning thin-handed. The Natural History of Hastings, the only authority for its occurrence in this county, marks it as rare,® while Bell, speaking for Great Britain in general, calls it extremely rare. On the other hand Professors Alphonse Milne-Edwards and Bouvier, reporting on Crustacea resulting from the scientific campaigns of the Prince of Monaco, say that, though this

  • Histolre Naturelle det Crustaces, i. 280. * Crustacea of Egypt, pi. 6, fig. 6.

« Challenger Reports, vol. xvii. ' Brachyura,' p. 8.

  • British Stalk-eyed Crustacea, 'p. 15. * p. 17. ' p. 41.

252