. Cuvier's animal kingdom : arranged according to its organization. Animals. DECAPODA. 413 The first section, Pinnipèdes, have the hiud pair of legs terminated by a flattened plate for swimming, and these species are accordingly met with at a distance from the coasts. Amongst these swimming or shuttle-crabs, as they aie termed, are especially to be noticed the exotic species, composing the genus Matuta, Fab., having the carapax nearly circular, and armed on each side with a strong spine, and with the four posterior pairs of legs terminated by a dilated plate for swimming. Tlie same is also th
. Cuvier's animal kingdom : arranged according to its organization. Animals. DECAPODA. 413 The first section, Pinnipèdes, have the hiud pair of legs terminated by a flattened plate for swimming, and these species are accordingly met with at a distance from the coasts. Amongst these swimming or shuttle-crabs, as they aie termed, are especially to be noticed the exotic species, composing the genus Matuta, Fab., having the carapax nearly circular, and armed on each side with a strong spine, and with the four posterior pairs of legs terminated by a dilated plate for swimming. Tlie same is also the case, but less strongly, in Leach's genus Pu/j/Oius, consisting of the single species, P. Henslowii, found on the Devon- shire coast. Amongst the species with only the last pair of legs dilated at the extremity into a plate for swim- ming, the genus Orithji'ia, Fabr., consisting of a single Chinese species, is distinguished by the tail of the males being distinctly seven-jointed, whereas there are only live joints in the males of all the other Pinnipèdes, the females alone having seven joints. Amongst these the genus Podopthalmus, Lamarck, has the carapax transverse, and armed at each side with a very long spine ; the ocular peduncles are very long (P. spinosus, Latr., Isle of France) ; others wliich have the ocular peduncles short, and which are of the ordinary crab-like form, compose the geims Purtanun, Fab., amongst which may be mentioned Cancer puher, Linn., and Cancer Mamas, Linn. (Carcinus Manas, Leach), two small species, commoidy used as articles of food by the lower orders in London. The last- named species is exceedingly abundant ; the terminal joint of the hind legs is much narrower than in the preced- ing groups, and thus this species forms a passage toâ The second section, Arcuata, in which the tarsus, or last joint of all the legs, is conical, and some- times compressed, but never forming a swimming plate, and the carapax arched in front and narrowed behin
Size: 1666px × 1500px
Photo credit: © Central Historic Books / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookpublishe, booksubjectanimals
