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

II298 COLLECTIONS FROM MELANESIA.STOMATOPODA.1. Squilla nepa, Latr.A small male is in the collection from Port Darwin, 7-12 fms.(No. 173).For remarks on the geographical distribution, and an enumerationof localities whence the British-Museum collection possessesexamples of this common and widely-distributed species, I mayrefer to my revision of the group *.Since itspublication specimens have been added to the NationalCollection from W. Borneo t.2. Gonodactylus chiragra (Fahr.).Two small males are in tlie collection from Port Molle (beach,No. 98) in the fii'st collection, and one from the beach at ThursdayIsland (No. 167) in the second collection, of larger size.Since I referred to the distribution of G. cliiragra in 1880, specimensboth of this species and of G. (jraphurus have been added tothe collection from various Malayasian localities % ; and of G. chiragraalso from Ceylon {Dr. W. Ondaatje).Dr. Kossmann§ confidently identifies this very common specieswith the Cancer faJcatus of Porskal ||,whose name, having priorityover that of Fabricius, would displace the almost universallyadopted designation G. chiragra, if the identification be correct.But I am inclined to think that Forskal's description may not improbablyhave been based upon a specimen of the almost equallycommon G. grapliurus ; the words (used of the terminal segment)" in medio scuti gibbus, elatus, hemisphsericus,' carinis longitudinalibus,convexis, pone mucronatis numero quinque " will applybetter to the latter form, on the supposition that Porskal overlookedthe small outermost pair of lateral prominences ; in G. cliiragra butthree dorsal carinaB are distinctly developed, and these, in the adultat least, are not mucronate. Under these circumstances it will bebetter, perhaps, to retain the accepted designations than to run therisk of further unnecessarily complicating the synonyms by applyingForskal's doubtful name to either species.3. Gonodactylus graphurus, White (ined.), Miers.Specimens of this widely distributed species, which appears to bevery abundant on the N.E. Australian coasts, are in the collection* Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 5, v. pp. 25, 118, 120 (1880).t Vide ' Annals,' t. c. pp. 458, 459.I Vide ' Annals,' t. c. p. 459.§ Malacostraca, in ' Zool. Ergebn. ciner Rcise in Kiistengeb. des roth. Meeres,'p 100 (1880).' Doscriptiones Animalium,' &c. p. 96 (1775).