[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 6th October 1899.]

Some years ago I published a paper on “The Distribution and Varieties of the Fresh-water Crayfish of New Zealand.”^* My collection was deposited in the Dunedin Museum, and shortly afterwards the whole collection, together with some additional specimens afterwards collected, was, with the kind consent of the late Professor T. J. Parker, forwarded to Professor Walter Faxon, of Cambridge, U.S.A., for use in the preparation of the second part of his “Revision of the Astacidæ,” which was to treat of the South Hemisphere genera of fresh-water crayfish. Unfortunately, the material at his command did not include sufficient specimens from Australia, Tasmania, and South America to enable him to complete a satisfactory revision of the Parastacinæ as a whole, but such results as he could obtain he has recently published in the “Proceedings of the United States National Museum,”^† and in this paper he deals pretty fully with the New Zealand crayfishes. As his work may not be accessible to many in New Zealand, I have thought it well to give a short account of his results here, especially as on one point they differ somewhat from my own.

Faxon divides the crayfishes of New Zealand into three species, viz.: (1) Paranephrops planifrons, White; (2) Paranephrops zealandicus, White; (3) Paranephrops setosus, Hutton.

I had considered the last two species as merely varieties of a single species, which I described in my paper under the name P. neo-zelanicus, and I there mentioned most of the points of difference which Faxon relies upon for the separation of the two species, and so long as these are recorded and recognised it matters little whether we divide the specimens into two species or two varieties of one species. Professor Faxon has, however, had such great experience in dealing with species of crayfishes that it will probably be wise to follow him in recognising P. zealandicus and P. setosus as separate species, especially as the two names have already been used.