Report on the zoological collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean ...

278 COLLECTIONS FKOM MELANESIA.inner margins near the base (the teeth themselves generally appearingcrenulated when viewed with a lens of sufficient power), and thereare usually one or two spinules discernible on the hepatic region.There are specimens in the British-Museum collection obtainedbetween Cumberland Island and Slade Point, and from Port Jackson{J. Macr/illivray, H.M.S. llattlesnake • '), and others from FlindersIsland and Shark Bay, W.Australia (F.M.Rayner, H.M.S. ' Herald').The specimens from Flinders Island and Shark Bay have, however,the upper surface of the wrist and palm of the clielipedesmuch more strongly and distinctly spinulose, and may possibly proveto be distinct.Mr. Haswell (Cat. p. 162) notes the possible identity of G. australiensiswith G. spinosorostris, Dana, from the Sandwich Islands, aspecies somewhat insufficiently described. He has himself brieflycharacterized a form, the distinctive characters of which may perhapsnot be sufficient to separate it from G. austmliensis. G. corallicola,from Port Molle, scarcely differs from G. australiensis, exceptin the absence of the gastric spinules, for the form of the chelse andfingers is evidently a character liable to variation, according to thesex and age of the individual.I may note here that there is in the Museum collection a specimenfrom the Philippines perhaps belonging to the species brieflycharacterized by Haswell under the designation G. acideata.22. Galathea elegans.Galathea elegans, White, List Crust. Brit. Mus. p. 66 (1847), descript.nulla ;Crust, in Votj. H.M.S. ' Smnarang,'' pi. xii. fig. 7 (1848) ;Hasivell, Cat. Austr. Crust, p. 163 (1882).Here is referred, although with some hesitation, a specimenfrom Albany Island, 3-4 fms., first collection, and one fromPort Molle, 14 fms., second collection. They differ from White'stypes of this species in the British- Museum collection, from thePhilippines, Corregidor {Cuming), and Borneo, Unsang (H.M.S.'Samaning''), in the smaller, more inconspicuous spinules of thelateral margins of the rostrum. The chelipedes are somewhat moreelongated and slender than in a dried specimen which I take to bea female of White's species, the fingers relatively shorter, and thespinules of the carpus and penultimate joint smaller and well nighconcealed by the pubescence. The coloration, as depicted in thefigure cited, is of no value as a specific distinction, since not anytwo specimens agree exactly in their markings. In the Bornean examplesthey are much broader than in the Philippine specimens, fromone of which they are wholly absent. In the specimen from AlbanyIsland they are distinguishable only on the anterior part of the postabdomen.The ground-colour in nearly all is dull red.In the adult males of G. elegans (the type specimens of which havenever been described) the caraj)ace is strigose, the strigse ciliated, itslateral margins armed with 8 or i) prominent spinules; the rostrum iselongated, narrow-triangular, as long, or nearh' as long, as the cara-