. The animal kingdom, arranged after its organization, forming a natural history of animals, and an introduction to comparative anatomy. Zoology. DECAPODA. 413 The first section, Pinni pedes, have the hind pair of legs terminated hy 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 are termed, are especially to be noticed the exotic species, composing the genus Matuta, Fab., having the carapax nearly circular, and armed on each ride with a strong spine, and with the four posterior pairs of
. The animal kingdom, arranged after its organization, forming a natural history of animals, and an introduction to comparative anatomy. Zoology. DECAPODA. 413 The first section, Pinni pedes, have the hind pair of legs terminated hy 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 are termed, are especially to be noticed the exotic species, composing the genus Matuta, Fab., having the carapax nearly circular, and armed on each ride with a strong spine, and with the four posterior pairs of legs terminated by a dilated plate for swimming. The same is also the case, but less strongly, in Leach's genus Polybiui, consisting of the single species, /'. HeiuloieH, found on the Devon- shire coast. Amongst the species with only the last pair of leq;s dilated at the extremity into a plate for swim- ming, the genus Orithiiia, consisting of a single Chinese species, is distinguished by the tail of the males being distinctly seven-jointed, whereas there are only rive joints in the males of all the other 1'innipedes, the females alone having seven joints. Amongst these the genus Pmlojilhalmus, Lamarck, has the carapax transverse, and armed at each side with a very long spine ; the ocular peduncles are very long (/'. ipinotut, Latr., Isle of France); Others which have the ocular peduncles short, and which are of the ordinary crab-like form, compose the genus Portunui, Fab., amongst which may be mentioned Cancer pu'-ei; Linn., and Cancer MatUU, Linn. (Curriniis Mamas, Leach), two small species, commonly used as articles of food by the lower orders in Ixmdon. 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 to— The second section, Arcuata, in which the tarsus, or last joint of all the legs, is conical, and some- times compressed, hut never forming a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, booksubjectzoology, bookyear1854
