extended over the whole carapace, but usually the front half is more deeply pigmented than the posterior; the merus and upper surface of the hand are of the same rich colour as the adjacent parts of the carapace.

The edge of the carapace is raised into a low ridge, which is lightly granulated all round, except along the posterior edge. The carapace is faintly granulated, especially antero-laterally; the hands are microscopically granulated; the subhepatic region is shortly pubescent; the last joint of each walking-leg has two grooves and the penultimate one groove on each surface. This sculpture is not prominent, and the crab is remarkably smooth all over.

The palm is much enlarged in the male. The fingers are comparatively thin, especially the movable one, which is also longer and slightly curved. The teeth are regular, decreasing in size towards the tip, low and flatly rounded. The wide gape at the base of the fingers is mostly filled by a large membraneous pad. The fingers are sharply pointed, and tipped with brown. In the hand of the female, a faint ridge runs along the palm along the outer surface to the tip of the fixed finger, as for example in Leptograpsus.

The female abdomen is very large, circular, last segment rounded-trigonous; eggs extremely numerous, 0.5 mm. in diameter.

The order of size for the four pairs of walking-legs is:—2nd, 3rd, 1st, 4th. The male arm is longer than any, the female equal to the fifth pair.

This species, though found everywhere, is less numerous than some of the gregarious species, and is far from being the most abundant species of Crustacea, as Filhol claimed. It may be said to be the most conspicuous crab among intertidal rocks.

As indicated in the following measurements, the relative width of the carapace is variable:—

As regards the distribution, a letter from the late A. R. McCulloch, of the Australian Museum, states: “This species appears to have been first recorded from Australia by Haswell, who included New South Wales and Victoria in its habitat, though he placed a ? after each. Four specimens are in the Australian Museum labelled “Heterograpsus sexdentatus, New South Wales ?” which are doubtless some of those on which the records are based, but they are incorrectly identified, being Chasmagnathus laevis, to which H. sexdentatus bears some resemblance.

“No Victorian specimens are included in the collections of either the Australian Museum or the Macleay Museum, nor was it obtained by the late Mr. F. E. Grant, who collected in many parts of Port Phillip; the species was also omitted from the Census of Victorian Decapod Crustacea by Fulton and Grant. The records of H. sexdentatus from Australia may therefore, I think, be regarded as incorrect.”