Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/301

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CRUSTACEANS Natural History of Hastings as common, and the larger but not large P. platycheles, the flat-ckwed ' hairy porcelain crab ' as not uncommon.' Here the thin but rather broad pleon is flexed against the breast as in the Brachyura, but the sixth segment of it carries well developed ap- pendages, and the seventh segment is peculiarly sutured, as if it were composed of a segment with coalesced appendages. A species found by Mr. Hailstone in Sussex was at first determined by Westwood as a new species, P. mitiuta, and afterwards referred by Mr. Hailstone himself to P. linneana. Leach, which is in fact a synonym of P. longicornis^ Of Galathea squamifera. Leach, Bell says, ' The largest I have seen were procured by myself at Bognor, where they are often taken in con- siderable numbers in prawn and lobster pots.' ' G. nexa, Embleton, and G. strigosa (Linn.) are both recorded as rare by the Natural His- tory of Hastings* but by Mr. Guermonprez the last is reported as 'frequent' at Bognor. In this genus the pleon is in some respects similar to that of Porcellana, but it is thicker and far less completely inflexed. For discriminating the three species above mentioned it is useful to remember that the first two have, and the third is without, epipods on the chelipeds and two following pairs of legs. The epipod is the secondary branch attached to the first joint of a malacostracan appen- dage. In G. fiexa the third maxillipeds have the third joint as long as the fourth, whereas it is shorter than the fourth in G. squamifera.^ The surface markings, spines, and colours in this genus are almost always artistically effective, and will attract some observers more than the minutiae, which must be inspected for distinguishing the several species. Eupagurus bernhardus (Linn.) is noted as very common by the Natural History of Hastings, and Eupagurus prideaux (Leach) as rare.* The former is on the shore the commonest of English ' hermits ' ; the second is admired for the persistence with which it claims the com- panionship of the sea-anemone, Adamsia palliata, perched like a sentinel outside the hermit's cell. Mr. Guermonprez, writing to me from Bognor, expresses some doubt as to the occurrence of this species on the Sussex coast, questioning whether the specimens may not probably be brought from near the French coast by the scallop fishers. To the Sussex fauna he himself adds the little Eupagurus cuanensis (Thompson), in which the eye-stalks are relatively much longer than in E. bernhardus, and the front of the carapace is not as in the latter species excavate to receive them. Of the genuine Macrura some tribes are rather sparsely represented in these waters. Thus of the Thalassinidea only one family, the Cal- lianassidas, can be claimed, and that only on the strength of a single species, Upogebia stellata (Montagu), which Mr. Guermonprez has found at Bognor occasionally. He informs me by letter that it makes long burrows in the ground occupied by the sea-grass, Zostera marina, below » Nat. Hist. Hastings, p. 41. ^ Loudon's Magazine, viii. 395. 3 British Stalk-eyed Crustacea, p. 198. * p. 41. 5 Bonnier, Bulletin Scientifque de la Frame et de la Belgique (1888), s^r. 3, i. 43. * p. 41. 255